Peace

“Slain in the Spirit” – Is it for Real?

Dec 152010

As a Christian, I have seen many charlatans, including having gone once to a Benny Hinn event where, sitting in the stands, I watched as they manipulated the seating to make it appear to cameras that the arena was full, and people pushed and shoved each other to be the first down the stars to the floor, where they could get in line to be touched by Benny - if Benny’s guards, who were stopping and questioning each potential sick-person-in-need-of-healing, allowed you to. The air was thick with the power of a spirit in action; only I don’t think it was the Holy one…

And yes, I have stood at the prayer altar and felt a pastor try to push me, with two fingers on my chest, back into the arms of someone standing behind me. I stood straight, and kept praying to Jesus that what ever His will was, that I would do. But I wasn’t going to lay down for any man. The pastor seemed to get frustrated with me, and moved on.

However, there was once, at an average chapel service at a small church one evening, where services were sincere and open hearted, but somewhat uneventful, and where the sermon hadn’t even begun yet, that something happened.

It was still in the middle of worship, and a guitarist had stopped playing. After a few moments, it became obvious that he was sobbing. And then…a few in the congregation began to cry. I don’t know what happened, but within a matter of minutes, several people were sobbing in the congregation…and from there, some began kneeling in their tears, praying and sobbing….and others went to the side of a crying person, hugging or putting an arm around a shoulder, and began praying for them and with them…and then… I saw someone laying on the floor, and another person, and another, and by this time, almost everyone was praying for someone or crying. I looked across the heads of praying, crying people, and saw a friend across the room; we caught each other’s eyes. We were the only two left standing.

My friend and I smiled at each other across the room, then turned, went to someone nearby crying, and knelt down and prayed.

This all happened in a matter of minutes, but the prayer went on like that for almost two hours. The Sermon didn’t even take place. The pastor was sitting down on the steps of the altar, crying and praying too. Something like this had never happened before, and I have never experienced anything like it since.

I do believe it is the first and only time I have truly witnessed slaying in the Spirit.

No, it wasn’t mass hysteria. I knew all these people. Some of them didn’t even like each other. And although we went on to have many “good” worship services together, this event has not been repeated – because it wasn’t a cooked up show and no one would want to try to cook up a mimic. It was too beautiful in it’s simple spontaneity to mess with. Why would one want to ruin the memory of a night like that by trying to force it to happen again.

But I pray the Lord WILL allow me to experience an event like that again – and again and again – because the feeling of being present during an honest move of the Spirit is too tremendous to describe. I want more of that.

Why did Liberal ‘Christians’ attack Tea Party Christians?

1 Response »

Sep 262010

.
I have heard that the Obama Administration has recently back-tracked on the plan to label Conservative Christians as “non” Christians….but that doesn’t make what’s already been said go away. Misconceptions and, well, slander should still be addressed.

So…in the statements below, Mr. Jim Wallis appears to be judgemental, angry, intolerant, and impatient with fellow Christians …and doesn’t appear to even like Americans of light skin tone. But this is who our President asks to speak into the Spiritual lives of Americans… so he must have a warm heart and ability to love his brothers and sisters in the Lord, even if they disagree with him.

As Christians, would Jim Wallis and David Gushee be willing to sit down and just listen to a few of their conservative Brothers & Sisters in Christ – just sit down, with love, patience, respect and tolerance, and listen, with a heart open to understanding and without trying to correct or instruct? Just as they would with Wallis’ friend, the Imam in charge of the planned Mosque near Ground Zero?

World News Daily: ‘Christians’ set to attack tea partiers
Author warns of next assault after failed attempt to define group as racist

“With recent attempts to portray tea-party members as racist backfiring, a renewed attack is being launched, warns the author of “The Tea Party Manifesto,” and this one is from progressive Christians who claim the movement lacks Christlike charity.

“Just as the racism accusation from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People proved groundless before it deteriorated into an embarrassing public-relations disaster that encompassed the White House, says Joseph Farah, author of the “Manifesto,” no one should accept the latest salvo as gospel either. Federal welfare programs are “coercively taking money from people and redistributing to other people, which, at the end of the day, is legalized stealing,” Religion News Service recently quoted Farah as saying. “And the Bible is pretty firm on stealing. … When Jesus talks about clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, he’s talking to us as individuals. [The Bible doesn't] suggest that government is the institution that he designed to help the poor.”

Progressive Christians with ties to the Obama administration – whose policies of government expansion over private-sector industries gave rise, in part, to the tea-party groups – characterized the movement as unbiblical.

“I think that the general ideology of the tea party is not a Christian one,” said David Gushee, co-founder of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good. “This kind of small-government libertarianism, small-taxes, leave-me-alone-to-live-my-life ideology has more in common with Ayn Rand than it does with the Bible.”

In one of his regular columns on the Huffington Post, Gushee wrote,

“I believe that extending health-care access to every American was always the right goal and reflects the moral commitments of the Christian faith.”

Gushee’s biography boasts of being “contacted by candidate Barack Obama and remain(ing) in conversation with the religious-affairs office of the Obama administration.”

The Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of the Washington-based social-justice group Sojourners and a key member of Obama’s faith council, is “even blunter in his assessment of the tea party’s approach to giving,” reports Religion News Service.

“The libertarian enshrinement of individual choice is not the pre-eminent Christian virtue,” he wrote on his blog, God’s Politics. “Emphasizing individual rights at the expense of others violates the common good, a central Christian teaching and tradition.”

How “Christian virtue” and “the common good” jibe with Wallis’ own documented radical associations and stances, including support of violent extremists, oppressive regimes and anti-American sentiment, warrants examination, critics say.

While the Associated Press described him as a “politically progressive evangelical,” Wallis reportedly served as Michigan leader of the Students for a Democratic Society – out of which Bill Ayers’ domestic-terrorist group the Weather Underground sprouted.

Wallis’ magazine Sojourners, reports WND, “actively lobbied for communist regimes that seized power in Latin America in the late 1970s.” His 1976 book “Agenda of Biblical People” called America “the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life, the great master of humanity and history in its totalitarian claims and designs.”

Wallis got involved early in the racism offensive against the tea party.

“There is something wrong with a political movement like the Tea Party which is almost all white,” he blogged May 27. “Does that mean every member of the tea party is racist? Likely not. But is an undercurrent of white resentment part of the tea party ethos, and would there even be a tea party if the president of the United States weren’t the first black man to occupy that office?”

Farah, who wrote a book as far back as 2003 predicting the circumstances that would foster the tea-party movement, advises resisting attempts to narrow its scope to tax reform and fiscal issues. Subtitled “A Vision for an American Rebirth,” Farah’s “The Tea Party Manifesto” argues for following the Framers’ example in defining the movement’s spiritual core.

With “phase two in the coordinate strike against the tea-party movement attempting to co-opt the language of faith,” Farah warns, “realizing its spiritual moorings is essential not only to the success, but the actual survival, of the movement – and the future of America’s liberty.”

Veteran at a Tea Party Blessed All with National Anthem-

Comments Off

Jun 062010

.Oh man, did this man make me cry. Praise God – Praise Jesus. This is Truth, This is Good, This is God. Lord, in the Name of Jesus, Please Bless this man – this veteran – and his entire family.

Watchman Nee – Part III – His Martyrdom

Comments Off

Mar 152010

C.Continued from Part II – His Suffering

Relationship with Witness Lee
Watchman Nee’s closest co-worker was Witness Lee. Having been raised as a Southern Baptist, Witness Lee was saved in 1925 at the age of nineteen. That year Witness Lee began to seek to thoroughly know the Bible and found Watchman Nee’s articles and publications to be the most outstanding on biblical truths. He soon began to correspond with Watchman Nee and was astonished that someone only two years older than he was such a mature Christian. It was not until 1932, when Witness Lee invited Watchman Nee to Chefoo, that the two had their first personal contact. During the time they began to spend together, Watchman Nee’s stress on the divine life rather than on knowledge caused Witness Lee’s fellowship with the Lord to deepen and to grow more intimate. In the same year, believers began meeting in Witness Lee’s home; by the following year, this meeting was thriving. Due to the needs of the church, both men believed that the Lord desired Witness Lee to serve Him full-time. Their time together increased, during which Watchman Nee continually perfected and tested Witness Lee, preparing him to bear more responsibility. Realizing that the Lord’s work in China must be one and that He had begun it in Shanghai through Watchman Nee, Witness Lee moved to Shanghai in 1934 to be able to work more closely with Watchman Nee. They labored, suffered, spread the work, received revelation, and brought in revivals together. Brother Lee edited Watchman Nee’s publication The Christian from 1934 to 1940 and was his best man at his wedding.

In fear of annihilation by the incursion of Communism, Watchman Nee sent Witness Lee and a few others to Taiwan in 1949 to continue the work there. The last contact between Watchman Nee and Witness Lee was in March, 1950 in Hong Kong, twenty-five years after Witness Lee first knew of Watchman Nee. At that time, the two of them had extensive fellowship about Watchman Nee’s return to the mainland. He told Witness Lee,”What shall we do with so many churches on the mainland? I must return to take care of them and stand with them for the Lord’s testimony.”

Martyrdom
Watchman Nee was led by the Lord to remain in Mainland China in spite of the threat of Communism, and to sacrifice everything for the Lord’s work there. In this respect he was like the apostle Paul in Acts 20:24: “But I consider my life of no account as if precious to myself, in order that I may finish my course and the ministry which I have received from the Lord Jesus…” Concerning his decision, Brother Hsu Jin-chin testified the following:

Before Brother Nee left Hong Kong, Brother Lee advised him many times not to return to the mainland. But Brother Nee said, “If a mother discovered that her house was on fire, and she herself was outside the house doing the laundry, what would she do? Although she realized the danger, would she not rush into the house? Although I know that my return is fraught with dangers, I know that many brothers and sisters are still inside. How can I not return?” Brother Lee escorted him three times back from the bus stop to his home in Diamond Hill…
Watchman Nee was arrested by the Communists in March, 1952 for his professed
faith in Christ as well as his leadership among the local churches. He was judged, falsely condemned, and sentenced in 1956 to fifteen years’ imprisonment.
During this entire time, only his wife was allowed to visit him. Although there is no way for us to know what he experienced of the Lord during his long imprisonment, his last eight letters provide a glimpse into his suffering, feeling, and expectation during his confinement. While prison censorship did not allow him to mention the Lord’s name in his letters, in his final letter, written on the day of his death, he alluded to his joy in the Lord: “In my sickness, I still remain joyful at heart.”
Watchman Nee was practicing the word of the apostle Paul in Philippians 4:4: “Rejoice in the Lord always.” He died in confinement in his cell on May 30, 1972. Humanly speaking, he died in misery and humiliation. Not one relative or brother or sister in the Lord was with him. There was no proper notification of his death and no funeral. He was cremated on June 1, 1972. His wife had died six months earlier, so it was her eldest sister who was informed of his death and cremation. She retrieved his ashes, and they were buried with Mrs. Nee’s in his hometown of Kwanchao in the county of Haining, Chekiang province. In May, 1989, the ashes of Watchman Nee and his wife were transferred to and buried in “The Christian Cemetery” in Shiangshan in the city of Soochow of Kiangsu province.

The following is an account by Brother Nee’s grandniece, who accompanied Mrs. Nee’s eldest sister to the labor farm to pick up his ashes:

In June 1972, we got a notice from the labor farm that my granduncle had passed away. My eldest grandaunt and I rushed to the labor farm. But when we got there,
we learned that he had already been cremated. We could only see his ashes….Before his departure, he left a piece of paper under his pillow which had several lines of big words written in a shaking hand. He wanted to testify to the truth which he had even until his death, with his lifelong experience.
That truth is—”Christ is the Son of God who died for the redemption of sinners and resurrected after three days. This is the greatest truth in the universe. I die because of my belief in Christ. Watchman Nee.”
When the officer of the labor farm showed us this paper, I prayed that the Lord would let me quickly remember it by heart…

My granduncle had passed away. He was faithful until death. With a crown stained
with blood, he went to be with the Lord. Although God did not fulfill his last wish, to come out alive to join his wife, the Lord prepared something even better—they were reunited before the Lord.

During Watchman Nee’s imprisonment he was confined, but his ministry was not bound (2 Tim. 2:9). Under the Lord’s sovereignty, his ministry has spread throughout the entire world as a rich supply of life to all seeking Christians.

His ultimate burden was the churches as the house of God, God’s tabernacle. Although his own earthly tabernacle (physical body) has been taken down, the churches, which were so much on his heart, are not only surviving but also continuing to grow vigorously and to spread throughout the earth. By the time Watchman Nee was arrested in 1952, approximately four hundred local churches had been raised up in China through his life and ministry. In addition, over thirty local churches had been raised up in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Today the Lord has multiplied the local churches to over 2,300 worldwide through the rich and faithful ministries of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee.

END
.

The Revival Hymn

Comments Off

Nov 302009

The Revival Hymn

This is a great compilation of voices of true men of God. Listen for yourself…

“The church of Jesus Christ is largely sleeping, like a great bedroom and you have all the Christians in bed and they’re all sleeping … and they’re saying “Please, don’t wake me up! I want to sleep on!” And of course when God starts to operate a revival people cannot sleep, you can’t sleep in church when the Spirit of God awakes the people. Look at the 1st verse of this 52nd chapter… “Awake! Awake! Put on strength!”Wake up! You’re sleepy Christians! Awake thou that sleepeth, Arise from the dead! Christ will give you life!”

________________________________________

The Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts

Comments Off

Apr 162009

.
I) 1:5, “For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” 7-8, “He said to them: “it is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

II) 2:4, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” 14-21, “Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: ‘Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 32. “God has raised the Jesus to life 38, ”

III) Acts 4:29-31; “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.” Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous sings and wonders through the name of your holy Servant, Jesus. After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”

IV) 5;3-4, “Then Peter said, ‘Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit …you have not lied to men but to God.” 9, “how could you agree to rest the Spirit of the Lord? Look..”

V) 6:3-4, “Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention for prayer and ministry of the word.” 10, “But they could not stand up against his (Steven’s) wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke.”

VI) 7:59, “While they were stoning him, Steven prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

VII) 8:14-23, “When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria has accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit has not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the Laying o of the apostless hands, he offerece them money and said, “give me also this ability so that everyone whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.” 29, “The Spirit told Phillip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” 39-40, When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Phillip away and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. Phillip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.”

VIII) 9:17-18, “Then Ananias went to the house and entered it., Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord – Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here – has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again.”

IX) 10:19, “While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with then, for I have sent them.”

X) 11:12-18, “The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved. As I began to speak, The Holy Spirit came on them as he has come on us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God? When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.” 27-30 “During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. …The disciples, each according to his ability, decided to provide help for the brothers living in Judea. This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.”

XI) 13:2-4, “While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus.”

XII) 16:6-7, “Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “come over to Macedonia and help us. After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”

XIII) 19:1-6, “While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we haven not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. So Paul asked, ‘Then what baptism did you receive?’ ‘John’s baptism,’ they replied. Paul said, ‘John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, they Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.”

XIV) 20:22-23, “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.” 28, “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.”

XV) 21:4, “Finding the disciples there, we stayed with them seven days. Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.” 10-11, After we had been there (Caesarea/house of Phillip) a number of days, a prophet by the name of Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and fee with it and said, ‘The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over the Gentiles.”
.