Content by Thomas Liddon Sheridan

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On October 12, Thomas Liddon Sheridan was called to Glory. He was 82, and had been my husband for 62 years. The previous day, he fell and hit his head, fracturing his skull. This caused internal bleeding into the brain. After a few hours of semi-consciousness, he went into a deep coma and died at 7:30 on Thursday morning. Liddon was born in Jacksonville, FL. When he was 8 months old, his parents moved to Augusta, GA, where his father pastored a large church. He was saved as a young child, but in his mid-teens he dedicated his life completely to the Lord. At that time he was given a great love for the Word of God which never left him. His mother told me of often finding him asleep with his Bible held tightly to his heart. When he was a senior at Bible college, studying for the ministry, we met and were married at the end of that school year. While Liddon was growing up, his father often brought to Augusta well known Bible teachers, such as Harry Ironside and William R. Newell for city-wide conferences. Encouraged by such ministry, he began his life-long practice of in-depth study of the Word of God. He became increasingly concerned about his church position. Since he had never heard of anyone meeting just in the Lord’s Name, he continued studying, praying, and dreaming of a meeting based only on the Word without sectarian boundaries. Finally, in 1941, through the influence of his brother-in-law, Virgil Hollingsworth, Jr., he learned that such meetings did exist. He wrote: After years of discussing the will of the Lord for a Christian regarding his church position and wrestling with the decision, and with much prayer, Bro. Hollingsworth and I resigned our denominational connections, and with our wives and one newly saved couple, began breaking bread in his home. This was the birth of what is now Bethany Chapel in Augusta. After about one year, he went through a time of agonizing prayer and searching before the Lord, largely due to the fact that he saw the deep pain that his departure from that church caused his godly parents and others who could not understand his “new” position. Finally, with real sorrow, he knew he had no choice but to obey what he plainly saw in Scripture. He returned to Bethany Chapel, and was back in what he considered his scriptural church position, never to waver again. For the next few years he worked at secular jobs, using all available time for prayer and Bible study. A real scholar, knowing Greek, he was only interested in “what saith the Scriptures.” Soon, he was preaching throughout the south most weekends. In 1948, we were commended as missionaries to the work in what was then Belgian Congo. We returned in 1955 due to political unrest. Liddon began an itinerant Bible teaching ministry, and he soon realized that this was God’s path for him. He did this for the rest of his life—in the Bahamas, Canada and the US. In 1983, we returned to Nyankunde, our old mission station in Africa, and for six months he preached and taught the Word. We spent quite a bit of time in the “bush.” The African Christians fed and housed us in their huts. We walked many miles and had the privilege of visiting many villages far from the beaten track. There were many professions of faith. In the late 1960’s, Lawrence Chambers gave Liddon his model of the tabernacle. This richly enhanced his ministry. Several years ago, he turned the model over to Bill Gustafson who uses it in his work. Liddon spent the last four years ministering locally or in easily accessible meetings. At the time of his death, he was teaching a weekly Bible class in a local engineering firm. He loved that class! Also, he was making radio tapes that were aired weekly in Wrens, GA. He had recently preached a series on “The Glory of the Church and the Churches” locally. There is a great emptiness in our hearts, but not for one moment would we wish him back. At last he is HOME! “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”