It was a rather strange occurrence. Two men came to my church and were allowed to preach. They mainly spoke about healing and God answering our needs if we believe and let Him do His work in our lives. One man spoke and his partner translated. This man that spoke (a rather thin older gentleman) did not rant and rave, he spoke very calmly (it almost seemed as if he lacked strength to even stand at the pulpit actually).
Towards the end of his speech, the man (regretfully, I do not know what his name was, I have never seen him on TV or anywhere else) mentioned that there was a woman in the church that is very concerned and somewhat grieved for her very young child (if I recall correctly, the "Holy Spirit" revealed this to him) and that he would like to pray for her and for many others in the church that are in "need". The funny thing was that this "revelation" was rather vague because we had many mothers with very young children and what are the chances that none of them were concerned and perhaps somewhat grieved over their young one - more than one mother probably thought the "revelation" applied to her.
I stood and watched as many people approached the front to be prayed over for various needs (I wish the pastor of the church would not allow others to come in and "pray" over his members - I do think he learned from this, however).
Then this man came to our Thursday prayer service and a few people from our small church stood up front and spoke about how God healed them on Sunday when the man prayed for them. Back then I was not yet very familiar with "preachers" like Benny Hynn or Rod Parsely or many others and I was not familiar yet with the amount of deception making its way into churches. I did, however have a need on my heart that I often wept and prayed about - the salvation of the people I work with that are atheist. I always wanted God in my life more than anything and to be a tool in His holy hands, one of the things He put on my heart is to pray for the lost that I meet throughout my life (during such prayers, the Holy Spirit would often fill me with so much sorrow for those souls that I would be willing to give my life for them to just accept Jesus into their lives).
Not to get off the subject, but I'll just go ahead and explain what led me to praying for the lost in the first place. I had a very vivid dream some years ago that I still remember as if I dreamt it last night. In this dream, I was walking on a narrow dry path with two men ahead of me. As I walked, I rejoiced with a heart filled with love for Jesus.
Then one of the men said, "Jesus is coming so soon."
I exclaimed with joy, "Yes, I know, I can feel it with my whole heart."
Then he made a sweeping motion with his arm and said, "and all this we will leave behind."
I looked around and saw only desert and thought to myself, "it is all desert anyway; there is really nothing to leave behind."
Then the man said, "and so many people do not know this and are going to hell for an eternity."
I did not give too much attention to this last phrase that he spoke and kept on rejoicing over my own salvation. Then he repeated this same phrase. Again, I did not devote much attention to it as I rejoiced, knowing that Jesus is coming very soon. Then he repeated the same phrase a third time and when he did, something happened that finally got my attention and terrified me. The ground before me tore open and I saw a scene so awful that everything within me cried out. It was a pit of darkness and fire filled with screams of anguish and pain. I looked at a man trying to leap out of the fire and stretching his arms up to be pulled up, but I knew that his trying was in vain because it was too late for his salvation. I looked into his eyes and I cannot describe the horrifying pain and desperation I saw in them, I wanted to help him so much!
I woke up with sweat and eyes full of tears and could not fall back asleep. After that, I would often imagine people who reject God in the place of this man and it would fill my heart with pain, causing me to pray for them with the Holy Spirit.
Ok, back to the story. I had this need on my heart for the atheists I work with to turn to God. The guest "preacher" came up to me and asked me what my need was (I guess it was obvious I had one because I was crying about it rather passionately while praying). I told him of this need. He laid his hands on my head and prayed (though I did not see how my head could have had anything to do with their salvation; I assumed he was praying for my strength and wisdom to perhaps be a light to them).
A couple of days went by and my mother called me over and asked me if I was depressed or if I'm having problems with my husband or if anything else is very wrong in my life. I told her that everything was well and that I was quite happy, and my husband seemed to be as well (I married at the age of 18).
She then told me another side of everything that happened at the church. As she stood in the back of the church while the guest prayed for people, she felt extremely disturbed in her spirit. She felt as if there was some kind of a dark battle and sensed a thick darkness. Then she saw me praying and decided to come up and stand together. Don't get me wrong; my mom is not this weird person that "feels" strange things. I guess the Holy Spirit just wanted to teach her something that day. Anyway, she said that when she came up, she felt a pleasant peace as if there was something around me, shielding me from some darkness that seemed to be present (which she at the time did not quite understand herself).
She decided to step away and felt the disturbance again and was confused. Then, when the guest started to pray for her, she started praying with the Holy Spirit and she said she has never heard or felt the Holy Spirit praying so harshly through her before. She felt the man's arms quickly lift from her head. This caused her to look at him and she saw how he stepped back a little, staring at her, and quickly ended his prayer.
For the next few days after that, she felt extremely depressed. She told my father about her depression and how she does not want to even do anything in the church any more (she is the principal of Sunday school). When she spoke to him, she did not even think about the man who had prayed over her and said nothing about the occurrence. However, the guest was the first thing that came to his mind and he asked her if that man had prayed over her. Then he said that he felt they should stand before God and denounce the prayers of that man over her and break any power they may have had on her. Now you don't just stand on your knees and denounce a prayer and pray for it's powers to be broken, my mom asked him if he was sure he knew what he was talking about. Then she started to remember the strangeness of the whole occurrence that had confused her and decided to go through with the suggestion. After the prayer, she said she felt as if some huge dark cloud left her and she felt an awesome peace and relief.
They then went to her sister's house and took one look at her and knew something was wrong; they had never seen her so awful and distressed. She told them that her son has not given her any peace for a few days and she has been having huge fights with her husband, which were leading them to the brink of divorce. Surely enough, the guest had "prayed" for the family. So they stood on their knees and did the same thing with her that they did at home. Peace and joy than entered that home as well.
That is how she decided to call me over and ask me if there was anything wrong. She said that it appeared as though God was shielding me while I was still spiritually quite young and letting a few others learn from a pretty awful experience.
She was then debating whether to tell any of this to the pastor of our church. She was afraid he would not accept it and think her a poor lost child or someone who is working against "Godly men"; after all, there were so many people in the church that were healed and it all seemed to look so wonderful. The next day, he came to where she worked and she was surprised to see him very sad and disturbed as well (not at all like himself). She prayed about it and asked God that if it is His will that she tell him, that the pastor should come into choir practice out of the blue and greet everyone with a handshake (the pastor never had the habit of coming to choir practice; he would sometimes walk by the room and look in and smile, but never really stop in; so to come in and greet everyone with a handshake would have been quite out of the ordinary; but she decided that if God truly wanted her to tell all of this to him, than it was nothing for Him to give her a sign).
The pastor came in on Saturday during their practice and did just that. So she decided she would just do God's will and whatever happens, happens. She told him everything. He sat there in silence and was rather taken aback. She then told him that she will never again let anyone lay hands on her and "pray" for her. Though he did not quite agree that she should take such an approach about anyone wanting to pray for her, he did not say anything about the rest.
Anyway, I've learned that God does indeed protect his children, whose true desire is to truly seek Him. This has given me encouragement and faith when praying for people's protection, as well as taught me to be cautious.
- IK
Ways to aid this ministry include praying for these sites:
www.TruthSeek.net, www.DeceivingtheElect.net, and www.DramaticParables.com, donations and provision may be gifted using the TruthSeekGift page (and please only use this if you feel you are inspired by God to do so), and also feel free to use the Prayer Request page to submit prayer requests, and praying for the prayer requests of others, as well as exploring the various advertisements and links on these pages (regrettably, the advertising is necessary to recompense the many costs of keeping a website running, so exploration of the advertisers, which are not connected to any of these studies, is greatly appreciated). Any aid is joyously accepted, even if that means a smile and a well-wish, or a simple prayer. Thank you so much!
Art et Amour Toujours
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