Revival FIRE!
So, in spite of Dave threatening me with a fire extinguisher, I’m still all lit up for Jesus. It’s actually kind of funny - I thought I was on fire before we left for Florida… but it’s sort of like the difference between a big bonfire and an inferno. Ken’s the same way.
Is the anointing transferable and contagious?
Oh yes.
I promised that when I got back, I’d blog about the revival. I’ve done so much talking about it on the women’s forum, in countless emails, on the phone, to strangers on the street, it’s going to be hard to sit and write it all in one place!
I’m going to post a warning - if you have no experience with Things Pentecostal/charismatic and with revival, this post might sound quite odd. If you’re curious about any of it, feel free to ask
So… we left last Thursday night and stopped in Savannah for a few hours sleep. Continued on to Lakeland, and met up with Kayti and Isaiah (her boyfriend) late Friday morning. (He’s such a NICE young man!) We were able to check into our hotel early, change clothes and eat a nice lunch, and then head out to the Stadium.
Last weekend, the revival was held in the Joker Marchant Stadium, where the Tigers have their spring training. It’s *nice*. Very clean, easy to get to in the city, good concessions (we didn’t try any personally, but lots of folks around us did). Nice.
On Friday, we arrived at about 4pm, and the atmosphere was already amazing. The gates didn’t open until 5:30, but the crowd was enormous - and festive. There were people with shofars, flags, drums, tambourines, and other instruments of praise… even a bagpiper!! I wasn’t expecting it… most of the Christian events I’ve been to in the past have been less dramatic in that sort of way. Quite honestly it put anything I’d ever seen at a pagan festival to shame.
There were people already worshiping before the music started, which was awesome! The people with the shofars seemed to all be in tune with one another… one would play, and then another, and then another, echoing around the stadium. Many of the people with worship flags lined up at the very top row of bleachers. The bagpiper played. All of it really ushered in the Presence of Almighty God. When the music started, there were 12000+ people crammed into that stadium… it was PACKED standing room only and people were apparently being turned away, because there were about 1000 more on the hillside overlooking the stadium! I’ve never been in a crowd that large, all of us praising the Lord before!!
Roy Fields is an awesome worship leader. He sings several songs that we knew already, but many more that we didn’t. My favorites are “Holy holy” and “Dancing Generation”. I don’t have the words to Holy Holy… I think Matt Redman sang Dancing Generation originally:
Your mercy taught us how to dance
To celebrate with all we have
And we’ll dance to thank You for mercyYour glory taught us how to shout
To lift Your name in all the earth
And we’ll shout to the praise of Your gloryIt’s the overflow
Of a forgiven soul
And now we’ve seen You, God
Our hearts cannot stay silentAnd we’ll be a dancing generation
Dancing because of Your great mercy, Lord
Your great mercy, Lord
And we’ll be a shouting generation
Shouting because of Your great glory, Lord
Your great glory, Lord
There’s nothing on earth like worshiping with thousands of other people - knowing that there are countless more doing the same in churches, homes, and even offices worldwide! We shouted praises to God until we were hoarse, and then we shouted some more!
As the service began Friday, there were two youngish Muslim men standing down near the bottom of the section we were in. Both of them ended up on the ground under the power of God! As far as we could tell, no one had been near them, praying for them, or anything - it was all God’s doing!
Both nights there were a lot of healings and testimonies and impartations. It’s hard to say now what happened on which night, because they all sort of run together. We saw a little boy who’d never walked before get up out of his chair and walk several hundred feet across the ball field and up onto the stage. A lady who’d had a heart condition and had been bedridden for YEARS had to be carried out of the stands to the stage so they could pray for her. She’d not walked on her own in YEARS. Todd prayed and she went down under the power. He said, “Pick her up”. As she stood, a demon manifested (we could all see it) and he cast the thing out. Down she went. “Pick her up!” They got her back up and he prayed and she fell a third time.
When she got up, Todd had her walk across the stage on her own. Then she began running. She ended up running back up into the bleachers. Talk about the crowd going wild!! I could type up hundreds of testimonies just like that one.
There was even a lady at our hotel who told us that God had healed her of Chron’s disease the night before at the revival - and she hadn’t believed in healing until then. She thought the whole revival was a fraud, she’d only come because her friend wanted her to! She was practically glowing, she was so overjoyed!!
There was another lady sitting in the seats behind us. Todd called out a word of knowledge that someone with a jaw problem was being healed. She SCREAMED “Oh my GOD that’s ME!” and made a beeline down to the stage, opening and shutting her mouth all the way - something she’d been unable to do prior to that moment!
Both nights, HUNDREDS of people were saved. HUNDREDS. There’s not much more beautiful than that.
After GodTV cut off at 11, there was impartation each night. Todd is committed that each and every person that attends the revival services needs to take this anointing and fire back home with them. It’s working - there are spreading pockets of revival breaking out WORLDWIDE… Atlanta… Charlotte… Belfast… a prison in New Zealand… everywhere!!
Friday night, he laid hands on every single person in the stadium. It took five groups that completely circled the outer edge of the ball field, and a good couple hours… it was past 2 when we left (we were in the last group). On Saturday night, he had all of the pastors line up on the field - there were at least 600 of us!
Todd has an amazing anointing. If you’ve never been to a Pentecostal service of any sort, you probably won’t know what I’m talking about when I say that someone “fell under the power” or they were “slain in the Spirit” - basically, it means that a person was prayed for and BOOM! They end up on the ground, and if it’s genuine, God’s doing work in them. They won’t be the same when they get up from there. It’s happened to me before. Not often, but often enough that I know what it is. It’s like a short circuit in the brain, in a good way. I think that perhaps it happens so that God gets you out of your normal realm of conscious control. Sometimes I’ve gone completely unconscious and didn’t know anything - including how much time had passed. Other times I’ve just laid there, completely without control of my body. And other times, I’ve been quite aware of what God was doing in me. There are people who seem to carry this with them and virtually everyone they touch as they pray ends up on the floor. Our friend Holly Noe is one like that.
Now, when there’s a prayer line, there often IS an expectation that people will fall (and there are “catchers” at most services.) Not everyone does and that’s all right, you don’t have to fall down for God to do a work in you. I’ve never seen anybody levitate at a service like this, but I’ve seen people who didn’t fall down seem to walk six inches off the ground If the anointing is present there’s usually some sort of sign that the person has received something, but it varies from person to person.
There are some ministers who will quite literally push people on the ground. I can’t stand that. I don’t mind someone who’s quite animated (like Todd Bentley and the ministers who work with him. Perhaps “animated” is an understatement though!), but I’ve actually been in a prayer line before where someone was trying to push me further and further back til I fell. Um… er… no. If I’m going to fall under the power, it’s not gonna be YOUR power, bub. It had better be God’s.
I said that to say this: if you’ve fallen under the power before, you have an internal expectation that it might happen again. I do believe that there’s some folks who simply fall out of expectation that they WILL fall… (or because they feel that they’re expected to). I’m not one of those people. I won’t do a “courtesy fall”. In fact, there’s been a few times I’ve decided I’d fight falling down. It hasn’t worked.
As Todd went around the line laying hands on people (with his classic “BAM!”), I was actually prepared NOT to fall down. I wasn’t going to fight it or anything - I just wasn’t expecting it (in spite of hundreds of other people doing so all around me). Both nights, as his hand touched my forehead, I thought, “Well - i’m going to stay…” and about that time, I found myself on the ground. I don’t even remember falling or anyone catching me. I was just down.
Friday night I went completely OUT for a minute and as I came back “to”, I started to giggle. And then laugh. I mean belly laugh! There was such an infusion of the JOY of the Lord in me, I couldn’t help it. I laughed off and on for the next two hours, and when we got back to the hotel I could barely sleep even though it was past 3AM!! I got up the next morning with a ton of energy, too.
Saturday night the same thing happened. His hand touched, he walked past me, and the same thought came - “Well, I’m goi…” - and as he stepped past, BAM! I was on the ground.
Here’s where things got interesting. I didn’t go unconscious but I wasn’t exactly aware of much in the physical sense. I could hear what was going on around me, and I could feel my body a little, but I couldn’t move or open my eyes for a long time. The pastor next to me - lovely lady from England - went down like a ton of bricks, on top of me. Now, there were catchers everywhere, a whole team of them. Since I didn’t see what happened, I don’t know… I think she might’ve just fell at a funny angle.
I felt her elbow hit my throat - almost. It touched but not with the force she was falling at (HARD. She hit the ground hard enough for me to hear!) Then I felt what I have to describe as a hand between her elbow and my neck and I felt her arm being PUSHED up and away from my neck. If she’d hit me full force, I’d have needed emergency prayer for healing because I’d have been seriously injured. But the Lord kept her fall from harming me!! I’m not sure this poor lady was able to receive much from Him - she was so worried about me! As I became more aware of my body I felt her gripping my hand and asking if I was ok. I started to laugh again and I laughed until I couldn’t laugh any more. Then I did!! There were people around me doing the same.
Now, I’ve heard of what’s called “Holy Laughter” before. It was the hallmark of the Toronto Blessing. When I first heard of it, I spoke against it… and then one day in church, I started to laugh. It was completely Spirit-driven. It wasn’t like what I just described… this was a gentle thing. It happened a few times over the years, always accompanied by a sense of overwhelming joy that would last for days. One day when we were at LCAG, our friend Tom was quite literally overcome with laughter. He hee-hawed and held his belly and cried, he was laughing so hard. That’s what it was like Friday and Saturday night.
Although I’m not giggling like a fool any more, I am still suffused with a level of joy and faith and assurance and peace and love and hope and EXPECTANCY that is far above and beyond anything I’ve ever experienced before. Like I said at the beginning of this exceedingly long post, this anointing IS transferable and it IS contagious - and I know because I went and I got some. No $3 bag of God here… I want ALL of Him.
More love. More power. More of His glory. More of HIM.
So what is revival? It’s a radical encounter with our radical Lord that transforms us into His image and sends us back into the world with His love and power evidenced in our lives.
If you’re reading this and you haven’t been following the events of the revival, there are four ways you can experience it for yourself (because it’s ongoing - indefinitely!) You can watch the live feed on the Internet at 10am and 7pm Eastern time, at freshfire.ca or at UStream. You can watch the 7pm service live on GodTV (DirectTV channel 365). You can go to one of the many homes and churches around the world that serve as overflow rooms (including ours!) Or, better yet, travel to Lakeland yourself. You won’t regret doing so!
May 8th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Awesome!!!! AWesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 9th, 2008 at 2:50 am
Thank God (?) for Nomex.