The Power of God

One day when I was a teenager, our Pastor suddenly stepped off the stage while he was preaching, and approached the husband of one of the women in our church who was visiting that Sunday morning.

When my Pastor raised his hand to pray for him, I saw the man get thrown backwards by the power of the Spirit through two or three rows of chairs.

Another time, another man - the unsaved husband of another of the women in church - responded to an altar-call for prayer. When our Pastor laid hands on him, he fell to the ground.

The man jumped straight up again - and the look on his face was like "What just happened!" Or maybe even a bit more like he thought the Pastor had knocked him to the ground and he was ready to retaliate! He got soundly converted and is still serving the Lord all these years later.

You know these types of men wouldn't fake something like that.

At another meeting in another place, so many people turned up, because they'd heard about the manifestations of the Spirit that were happening, that there weren't enough seats for everyone - so the leaders asked all the children to go outside.

During the meeting I went outside to check-up on the children. I found most of the children were lying on the ground: it was obvious many of them were having a profound spiritual experience. They were laughing for joy, and many of them seemed to be seeing visions.

Many adults were touched by the Spirit in that meeting - but the children were still lying on the ground, in the Spirit, even after the adults finished their meeting.

We asked one of the girls afterwards (who I'm kind of related to), about her experience. She spoke about seeing an angel, and about heaven, and about seeing and interacting with Jesus - she even said an angel was tickling her and making her laugh! She was nine years old.

When children are together with their friends, they wouldn't ordinarily spend the whole time lying still on the ground like that. So even if there are some people who do "courtesy drops" just because it's difficult to stand up, you know these children weren't pretending.

That's the power of God. We ought to be seeing this sort of "demonstration of the Spirit and of power"!

It's Scriptural. Saul (Paul) had a similar experience where "he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" And he got up a changed man.

He said afterwards "And I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision" - Paul started preaching instantly. There was a result.

When someone falls under the power of the Spirit, we may hear the person weeping, laughing, interceding, petitioning God, speaking with tongues, fellowshipping with the Lord or praising God - but very often the person might also be seeing a vision or hearing from the Lord. Having a heart-change. Then when he stands up, he's a different person.

With Pastoral facilitation, we can then encourage the person to go and be obedient to any instructions the Lord gave him while he was on the floor. This can result in much fruit.

It can happen to adults and children alike. Joel did after all prophesy that "your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions" when God will "pour out" His "spirit upon all flesh".

The "fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ" includes seeing the power of God accompanying the preaching of the Gospel. You can see it!

"...ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me".

"...these signs shall follow them that believe..." Jesus said.

"And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen."