What do you think about what happened? Let me hear from you in the comment section.
A church that my dad
and I
had once ministered to in Florida, invited me to come meet them in
Altoona, Pennsylvania to hold evangelistic meetings. I asked my good friend friend Ryan if
he would like to go with me and he agreed.
Before leaving Ryan and I went to Steve Hill’s office to ask him for advice and have him pray with us before we left. He told us many helpful things about the ministry and evangelism and then he prayed for us and asked God to use and anoint us. Right before we left his office he said, “This trip will turn out the opposite of how you expect it to.” I really did not understand what he meant, but I never forgot it. I was soon to discover what he was talking about!
Before leaving Ryan and I went to Steve Hill’s office to ask him for advice and have him pray with us before we left. He told us many helpful things about the ministry and evangelism and then he prayed for us and asked God to use and anoint us. Right before we left his office he said, “This trip will turn out the opposite of how you expect it to.” I really did not understand what he meant, but I never forgot it. I was soon to discover what he was talking about!
Ryan and I left the
state of Alabama, July the 11th
1997, on a Friday and drove about 23 hours to Altoona, PA. We arrived at 3am in the morning. We drove several
miles into the country, found our campsite and
were directed to the place where
we would be sleeping for the week. It
was a little wood cabin nestled in some
pine trees right on the edge of a hill. It had slow running water
and very cold showers, but it was fun.
The next morning we
awoke and met up with the leader of our group and the rest of the
team that had come from the other church. They were also staying in
cabins nearby. They told
us that Sunday night would be our first
meeting in the city of Altoona about 45 minutes away. When
Sunday night came
we drove to the little church, met with the pastor and
it was decided that Ryan and I would
speak. We shared very simply how God had touched us and changed us at
the Brownsville Revival and how he wanted to touch them right where
they were. An altar call was given and people responded to God.
After this we laid hands on people and saw the power of God move.
After
the service as we were walking out of the
church we noticed about fifteen
young people standing nearby so we went
over to talk to them. They listened intently as we told them all the
things God had done in our lives. It is so good to be able to share
something so powerful and real with people. They heard the gospel!
On one of the
following days I slipped and tore a hole in my heel so
had to go to a
local doctor’s
office. This also turned into an unexpected opportunity to share the
Lord. As the doctors and nurses worked on my foot Ryan and I shared
with them about the revival
and what Jesus had done in our lives and how He had changed us. Soon, every doctor and nurse in the building was in our room listening to
us and asking questions. Even
though I was in pain I was having a lot of
fun. In a way I was glad that I hurt my foot because it led to all
those people hearing about Jesus. When we walked out into the
waiting room to pay the bill we noticed that the room was full of
patients waiting for treatment. The doctors had spent so much time
with us they had forgotten about those waiting in the lobby. I
walked to the counter to pay my bill and the nurse said, “No
charge, thank you for coming here!” I felt like we made friends
that day.
We arose early on
Tuesday and drove to the place where
we would be speaking. It was the highest hill in the city. There
was a large sign
that stood in front of it that read, “Gospel Hill.”
I thought, “How
much better can this get?
This is so cool!” I knew God had set it
up and that He was going to move powerfully that week. As we worked
setting up the band and sound equipment, people began to arrive.
I saw many familiar faces that Ryan and I had met on the street
finding a place to sit on the grass. I was very
excited!
A total of about
twenty
people showed up that day and I was able to share the following with
them:
"Today I will be
reading two different verses in the bible that have to do with God’s
judgment, but first I want to quote a verse about His love and what
he did for you. This verse is one I am sure you all know. John 3:16
“God loves you so much that He sent his one and only son to die
for you.” He was beaten,
he bled and
his back was torn to shreds. The
bible says he was marred beyond human likeness and then he carried a
cross on his back that had
been shredded by the whip. The
Romans pressed a crown of thorns on his
head and then
they drove nails into
his hands and feet. He did it all to pay
the price for your sin. At any time he
could have called down a legion of angels to
rescue him from his certain death.
So many
people tell me “I'm waiting for God to come to me.” He died
2000 years ago on the cross and now it’s
your turn to come to him. There
will not be any legitimate
excuse on judgment day and
that day will come whether you believe it
or not. We will all stand before God one day. On that day Jesus
will say one of two things to you “Enter into my kingdom faithful
servant” or “depart from me I never knew you.”
Our loving Savior
will one day be a severe judge. “Just as man is destine to die
once, and after that to face judgment,” (Heb. 9:27) “For we must
all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may
receive what is due him for the things done while in the body,
whether good or bad.” (2 Cor. 5:10)
So many people ask
me why God would
send anyone to hell and the
truth they don't realize is that they are
sending themselves
to eternal darkness and
punishment. Your
place in eternity is decided in the way you
chose to live this life and who you serve. If you are not for God
you are against Him. If you do not live a life set apart from the
things of the world, you
are living on dangerous ground. If you do
not know Jesus then
you need to perform an
internal diagnosis
in order to discover
where you will spend eternity. I
say to the religious person, church will
not save you, reading your bible will not save you, praying will not
save you, but a
following Jesus and His ways will save you.”
Many who were there
had never heard a message about God like that before while
others had never heard about God at all. I asked for
those who did not know Jesus and wanted to meet Him in
a personal, powerful way to come forward.
Six people came forward weeping, actually some wailing because God had revealed
himself to be
real to them in a matter of moments.
I could see a joy and
an overwhelming peace come over their faces. Many,
who had seemed so hard before the service, now were smiling because
they had found Jesus. What a wonderful savior! After this we prayed
for all of
them that God would keep them strong. God touched them powerfully!
I remember one
particular girl at the meeting that was dressed like a punk rocker.
Ryan and I had met her previously
in the street and invited her to the meeting. She was in her early
twenties and had a baby and wasn’t married. Her ears were full of
earrings and her hair was cut short and bleached with crazy looking
colors. Now she was standing in
the presence of God broken and unable to stop weeping. God had shown His love and acceptance to
her!
Jesus walked with us
that day on Gospel Hill and I was thankful that He did. I thought,
“God, what will you do tomorrow?” We invited everyone to come
back to the meeting the next day and told them to bring all their
friends and they promised us that they would.
A sad ending to
God’s beginning.
That next morning I
woke up excited about what God had done the day before and wondered
what He had planned for this new day. I went to the team leader and asked when we would be
leaving and
they told me, “I don’t know if we will be going back. We
need to have a team meeting and discuss
something serious that has happened.”
Smack! I felt like
someone punched me! I could not fathom not going back. We had
promised those young people, that we would come back. “This cannot
be happening!” I thought. We got the team together to find out
what this “serious” matter was. The team leader rose
and said, “One of our team members had a dream last night that was
from God. It was a warning not to go back.”
The
aforementioned team member stood and
recounted
her dream she had the night
before. She said, “The dream that I had
showed me that if our team goes back down there today we will in some
way be killed, either through a car accident or some other way.”
Then out of nowhere
came a lot of talk about “the strong man” and how we forgot to
bind his powers. They said that he had authority over us to do this
and that. I could not believe what I was hearing. I said, “Look,
we promised those young people that we would come back and have more
meetings. Now
a spirit of fear has come in to stop us from going. God does not
want us to sit around here, He wants us out there telling
people about Jesus and
I do not want to stay here. I want you to all know that I am against it. I think we need to keep our promise!”
The leader said,
“Well, let’s all go to separate places and pray about it.”
After "prayer" the group met together and the decision was final for
us not to
go back. It wasn’t
just that day but for the rest of the week. In one foul swoop of mission trip was done and over. At
that point, I realized
how important discernment is.
To be open
to hear God’s voice and heart was more important than supposing a
“dream” was from Him. I felt like the enemy had won and there
was nothing I could do about it. The enemy saw that God was starting
something powerful so he tried to stop it by using fear and it
worked!
Ryan and I made a
decision to drive back home the next day. I was so grieved at what
had happened. The day before we left we
talked with the camp leader. He was hurt with our choice not to go
back as well. He had been so excited by what he had seen in the past couple
of
days and was expecting God to do so much more. We packed up
everything and left early Thursday morning and drove down into the
city. We decided to drive by Gospel Hill. There was no one around
so we got out of the car and walked up to a park picnic table.
I sat down as Ryan
walked further up the hill. I began to weep as I prayed, “Lord, how
many of those young people came yesterday expecting us to be here? How many young people? How could we have let them down like we did? They trusted us. They listened to us, Lord. Why
did this have to happen?”
Ryan and I remembered
where one of the girls lived that had come to the meeting. She was
one of the six that asked Jesus to come into her heart. We drove to
her house and knocked on her door. As soon as she answered the door
and saw that it was us she said, “Where were you yesterday?”
I asked her, “Were
there people there waiting there for us?”
And of course my
fears were confirmed when she said, “Yes!”
I didn’t know what
to tell her but to say, “Sorry!” I told her that we would be
going back home that day. I asked her to convey to all her friends
our apologies for not being there when we said we would be. We
talked with her a little more about the Lord and encouraged her to
follow Him whole-heartedly. Then we said good-bye.
I felt like the Lord
showed me many important things that week. Most importantly was the
following: First, man can so quickly get in the way and stop
something that God is doing. Second, I realized that there are many
ministries in the world but not all ministries are balanced solidly
on the word of God. When a ministry’s focus isn’t on Jesus and
Him alone, it is very easy for
the enemy to steer it off the
track God
has put it upon. When a ministry has to
depend on a dream, a “prophecy,” a “psychic reading from the
cosmos” or a word of knowledge from an "intercessor" to know God’s
will instead of seeking His heart to get direction, it can be
considered divination.
Jesus said; “Go!”
Paul ministered even when he knew his life was in danger as did every
follower of the Lord in the
scriptures. We need to be cautious that we
are not trusting solely in other people’s words to guide us but
that we personally seek to hear God’s voice daily and make sure
that our decisions line up with the Bible. This is not to say that
we do not listen to wisdom from tried and true men of God. There
must be a balance in this area!
I looked back into my
journal entry for that day. I had written, “It is great that six
people gave their hearts to Jesus that day on “Gospel Hill,” but
it could have been six-thousand!”
I appreciate you posting these stories. It shows some behind the scenes things than happen before we arrived in pensacola to attend BRSM . We can still look back and remember and learn, so the next time it happens, we won't get in the way. I long for my daughter to experience a move of God like we did. Blessings to you. Pam from http://www.swallowsnestzz.org
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