Lambs of Living Fire | Michael Seth Clifton

Learn more about Lambs of Living Fire: https://www.lambsoflivingfire.com/

Transcript

Evangelist Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I have a very special guest with me, Michael Seth Clifton. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.

Michael Seth Clifton (00:12):
Thanks for inviting me, Dr. King.

Evangelist Daniel King (00:14):
All right. You are a graduate of the Christ for All Nations Evangelism Bootcamp, one of the original bootcampers. And then you and I were together in Kahama, Tanzania and did a crusade there with Christ for All Nations. And you actually lived in Kahama organizing the crusade. How long did you live there and what were some of the adventures that you had in Tanzania?

Michael Seth Clifton (00:42):
I lived there for 87 days, but who’s counting? Some of the adventures were… Well, I mean, boy, we got into two car wrecks, I think.

Evangelist Daniel King (00:51):
Oh, wow.

Michael Seth Clifton (00:52):
One that I was in, the driver that we had got hit by another car. He jumped out and got into the car of the person that hit him and drove off. And I was there in the middle of a very busy street in Kahama, cars and motorcycles rushing by on either side in a car that had just been hit, wondering what I was going to do next.

Evangelist Daniel King (01:14):
Why did he run off with that guy? Did he ever come back?

Michael Seth Clifton (01:18):
He did not. My understanding is that he ended up being okay, but about a few miles down the road after they drove out of town, they threw him out of the car.

Evangelist Daniel King (01:24):
Wow.

Michael Seth Clifton (01:25):
He turned to me, he goes, “They hit me. They must pay.” And he just got out of the car and jumped in their car and that was it. So it’s not a spiritual story.

Evangelist Daniel King (01:34):
And we ended up having a great crusade there. Lots of miracles, lots of people saved. It was amazing. And you have since then, you’ve been doing crusades of your own and seeing God move. What are some of the things that you’ve seen God do?

Michael Seth Clifton (01:53):
Well, I mean, when we were in Kahama, Tanzania, I felt like the Lord started to put a neighboring nation I’d never heard of on my heart. It was Burundi. And I immediately, as soon as I mentioned it to one person, it was actually who was translating, her name was Flora, who was translating at the crusade for Daniel, for Daniel Colinda. She said, “What do you want to do?” And I said, “Well, we might do something in Burundi.” She goes, “Oh, I just got back from an international women’s conference there. I know exactly who you need to meet. He can open up all the doors for you.” And so that was our first – And

Evangelist Daniel King (02:24):
So that opened up the door into Burundi?

Michael Seth Clifton (02:26):
Yes, it did.

Evangelist Daniel King (02:26):
And you did one crusade there?

Michael Seth Clifton (02:28):
No, we went back. So we went in 2021 and then we did another series of crusades in 2022.

Evangelist Daniel King (02:37):
Okay.

Michael Seth Clifton (02:37):
So yeah.

Evangelist Daniel King (02:38):
And where else have you gone?

Michael Seth Clifton (02:40):
Let’s see. We have gone to Uganda. We have gone to… Well, I mean, we’ve gone to a lot of nations. As far as crusades are concerned, we’ve done Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Burundi a few times. I’m trying to think where else we did in Africa.

Evangelist Daniel King (02:56):
Wow. So what are some of the things that you learned from the evangelism bootcamp that have helped you to do evangelism?

Michael Seth Clifton (03:07):
I mean, I think that I never would’ve had… First of all, I never would’ve had faith for a crusade before or had any kind of grid for it. So I learned the structure of a crusade, how it operates, how you build a team. And when I was on the field, I learned how to work with a team. So it was very important classroom instruction. And then I would say even more important, just getting out there with the Lord, trusting him on a day by day basis and then kind of following the curriculum and seeing why all that information really matters in real time.

Evangelist Daniel King (03:34):
Wow. Now you’re married. What’s your wife’s name?

Michael Seth Clifton (03:37):
Michelle.

Evangelist Daniel King (03:38):
Michelle. Where are you living? Talk me through what you’re doing in ministry right now.

Michael Seth Clifton (03:44):
Well, we’re living in DFW, Dallas Fort Worth and Flower Mound particularly. What we’re doing right now, we just really felt like the Lord has said, “I want you to sow more into your community. I want you to sow more in locally.” He’s doing something in America. He’s doing something in the United States. So he’s not taking us completely away from international evangelism, far from it, but we’re definitely in a building season with him as far as kind of pioneering some evangelism things in DFW.

Evangelist Daniel King (04:12):
Right now we are in Tulsa, Oklahoma and we’re at a Christ for All Nations Fire Camp. It started on Monday and now it’s Friday. Tell me some of what you’ve seen God do among the students that have come here to the fire camp.

Michael Seth Clifton (04:28):
I’ve seen them go from timid to on fire. They are so hungry. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a class of fire camp students go from where they started to where they are now. You hear them cheering right now. They’re like several rooms away. At any point in time, even if you seem like you’re too far away to be able to hear something from that room, when they’re hearing the gospel priests, when they’re hearing an altar call made, anything that has to do with Jesus and salvation, they erupt in that room.

Evangelist Daniel King (04:57):
That’s what we’re looking for is people who are on fire for God. And so what are some of the things that help you keep your fire that would be an encouragement to other evangelists who want to stay on fire for Jesus?

Michael Seth Clifton (05:10):
I think a lot of what spiritual disciplines and things like that are actually sort of… They’re kind of ingrained now, so I don’t know that I think of them as disciplines, but I just read my Bible every single day. And the truth is I’m just knocked out about Jesus. I have not gotten over what he did for me. The Bible says that he’s forgiven much, loves much. I don’t know that I’m the most loving person that you’ll ever run into, but I sure do love Jesus and appreciate what he did for me and I can’t serve him enough. And since I’ve never gotten over what he did for me, he may have added a few things to me along the way, for sure he has, but the zeal for him and for his kingdom and my appreciation for his love and his sacrifice and his salvation, it has only increased.

Evangelist Daniel King (05:53):
Now tell me the name of your ministry.

Michael Seth Clifton (05:55):
The name of my ministry is Lambs of Living Fire.

Evangelist Daniel King (05:58):
Lambs of Living Fire. So tell me the story behind that.

Michael Seth Clifton (06:01):
So my wife and I were talking about this years ago and I was just like, “Lambs, we’re meek. We want to be meek, but at the same time, we are so passionate for Jesus.” And you know what? There’s nothing dead around Jesus. Everything is alive. And so we were just like, “We’re on living fire for God and we’re lambs, lambs of living fire.” And so we just put it together and that’s what we’ve been ever since.

Evangelist Daniel King (06:27):
That’s awesome. And so what’s your ministry website? If someone wants to get involved with your ministry or give to help you do crusades, what’s your website?

Michael Seth Clifton (06:36):
It is lambsoflivingfire.com.

Evangelist Daniel King (06:40):
Awesome. All right, so tell us more of what God has been doing in your heart over this last year. You said you really been seeking a quiet time with God.

Michael Seth Clifton (06:55):
Yes.

Evangelist Daniel King (06:56):
What do you feel God’s been doing in your life?

Michael Seth Clifton (07:00):
I feel like God, when the Lord saved me, I was running super fast in the direction of the devil. Christ showed himself to me on the road through the Holy Spirit and I just couldn’t believe it. I turned right around and started sprinting the other direction, so just chasing the Lord. Since then I was just like, “Okay, how can I serve this massive God who did this thing for me? What can I do for him?” So I was like, “Okay, what does that look like? Massive harvest. We’ll just give ourselves this thing.” And that’s the direction he led us. We didn’t just say, “Oh, how do I make an impact and then make it up along the way?” We followed him into it and that’s what he had for us. We were running hard for a number of years. We’re still running hard, but it’s slightly different way.

(07:44):
In this season anyway, at least these last six months, I just felt like the Lord has said that he wants to add or he wants to work more inside my heart. He wants to deepen faithfulness. He wants to deepen obedience. And for an evangelist, sometimes that looks like, “Okay, God, what is a nightmare for me? It’s not reaping the harvest that I want to reap. It’s being obedient to you.” That’s not the nightmare, but being obedient to you is why we’re doing this in the first place. Obedience is better than sacrifice. And so that’s what we’re doing. I know the Lord knows what he’s doing and I know that there’s a lot that I can receive from you. So that’s what we’re doing.

Evangelist Daniel King (08:20):
I think it’s so valuable what you’re doing right now, and probably every evangelist needs to do this from time to time because there are times where you run hard and you’re believing God for the finances to do a crusade and you’re believing God for open doors, but there really needs to come a time where you take a step back and say, “I’m going to spend time with God. I’m going to deepen my faith, my relationship with God and to recharge because ultimately we’re in a marathon. It’s not a sprint. And you can sprint and do something big for God, but if you keep sprinting all the time, you’re going to get tired and exhausted. We need to stay close to God so that we can still be doing good in evangelism 10 years from now, 15, 20, all the way through the end or whenever Jesus comes back, that we’re still solid in what God has called us to do.

Michael Seth Clifton (09:22):
Amen. And the truth is that it is nice to have more time to read my Bible and pray and other things like that. There’s just a frenetic pace, like you said, when you’re raising funds and you’re building teams and you’re on WhatsApp and you’re in every other level of communication with everybody and all those kinds of things, talking to pastors, churches and stuff like that. So not having that right in front of me for right now is the first time that it’s been like that in years. And so for that, yeah, there’s been a stillness and I’ve been able to seek the Lord like I haven’t been able to in a long time actually.

Evangelist Daniel King (09:55):
That’s awesome. Very cool. Well, brother Michael Seth, it’s good to see you. I so appreciated the work that you poured in to the Kahama Crusade. You poured your heart and soul into it, blood, sweat, tears, getting in car accidents and everything. And that’s what it takes to do a crusade. A lot of people, when they think about crusade evangelism, all they think of is the picture of the evangelist on the stage preaching to a big crowd of people, but not many people understand the amount of work that goes in behind the scenes to make that happen, to bring people together, to bring churches together, to build unity in the community, to organize everybody, to put up posters and put up banners and to announce everything. There’s so much that goes into having a successful crusade. Then you go, you work hard and you preach the gospel and then you celebrate over the number of people that get saved.

(11:04):
Ultimately, that work pays off in eternity where people’s names are added to the Lambs Book of Life, and that’s what makes it all worthwhile. That’s what makes it so beautiful.

Michael Seth Clifton (11:14):
That’s why we do it. Yeah.

Evangelist Daniel King (11:15):
Yeah.

Michael Seth Clifton (11:16):
Praise

Evangelist Daniel King (11:17):
God. All right. Well, thank you, Michael, for being on the Evangelism Podcast. God

Michael Seth Clifton (11:20):
Bless you. Good to be with you again.

Evangelist Daniel King (11:21):
God bless you. Yes, sir.