At 105-years old, the Rev. Hattie Mae Allen is a great-great-grandmother who still preaches every week even though she has been doing it for 57 years.
Two Sundays ago, at an event recognizing her decades of passionate ministry in her community at her church in Temple, Texas, known simply as Jesus, she preached a message billed, “Where are you and why are you here?” according to TDT News.
God’s love, she warned, is the only thing protecting human beings from the lake of fire. Bishop Aaron Toliver of Temple, who oversees her Allen’s church along with seven others, says she believes and obeys Scripture.
“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” he said at the event, reading from Romans 10.
“If we don’t obey it, there’s nothing between us and the lake,” said Allen, who came from a family of 12 siblings and has outlived all but two of them.
Obedience to Scripture and holy living, she warned, must come first in Christian living.
“We have to be separate from everything that is not Him,” she said. “We put Jesus first.”
She argues that when people have the love of God, it helps them to love everyone else.
“He wants us to be in love,” she said. “Love is something beautiful. I love everybody. I have two daughters, one of them is 84 and the other one is 70. I love them, but I don’t love them enough to put God down and go with them.”
Even though she does not have a formal degree, Allen told the TDT that she has a “PhD” in Jesus.
“I have a pure heart’s desire, and that is what God will honor in the end,” she said.
“As a child, I was sent to the bedroom to study and then went into the living room to speak them to my mother. Because of that and more, I learned to live as an example of a member of the Body of Christ,” she explained. “I was raised with love, respect and good virtues.”
Ruth Freeman, one of Allen’s daughters, told Fox News it was beautiful to see her mother live out her faith the way she has.
“For her to still be able to do that, and honor her at 105 and she still has that desire. That was just wonderful. That’s a blessing!” Freeman said.
Allen who still lives independently boasts proudly that it’s just “me and Jesus.”
Toliver, who has been a preacher for over 30 years, says over the years he has been blessed by Allen’s knowledge. She has taught him a lot he says and described her as “full of wisdom and knowledge.”
“I believe she was sent by God to help me. She is a wonderful woman of God,” he said.