"BORDERLAND"

"My message to you is: No longer consent to listen without protest to the perversion of truth." Selected Messages Book 1, Pg. 196

This was sent out in a newsletter from a Christian Radio station in Jan. 1995; it is a good account of a charismatic occurrence and we will use it to look at characteristics of these events in the light of Scriptures. I will present the article in its entirety, and will interpose comments in italics:

Dear friend of Christian FM 92;

I had already put the finishing touches on my first letter of 1995. I really liked it. It was full of optimism and inspirational resolutions for the New Year. It will never make it to the printer. Instead I am compelled to offer you a testimony and witness as to a most remarkable day. I pray that it will serve to encourage those who seek God and terrify those who oppose Him.

(Note the desire to ‘terrify, typical of the ‘arbitrary force’ concept of God promoted by Satan. It is not God’s wish to terrify people into serving Him—if it was, He could have done it long ago. In fact the very reason we have this Great Controversy going on in this world, is because God did NOT want a universe to serve Him out of fear.)

January 6, 1995 began in a rather ordinary way. It was Friday and it has been a busy week but I was looking forward to a slow day. As I was leaving the house I actually told my wife, "There’s not much on my calendar, I may try to take the afternoon off and come home early."

I had agreed to interview a pastor from St. Louis, Randy Clark, that morning. Randy was the guest speaker at the tabernacle church’s renewal services nightly and since the ‘Tab’ is a good friend of FM 92 and many other area churches were participating in the meetings, we had decided to clear a slot on the morning show for a brief interview.

My guest was one of the leaders of the so-called Toronto revival. I had read about the Toronto meetings, but frankly, I’ve heard a lot of revival rumors over the years and learned not to pay much attention. Normally I don’t do interviews myself but I was feeling cautious and let the morning guys know I’d be there.

(Notice already the ‘ground work’ of the devil to set up a situation where he could pull this thing off. If the boss had not have been involved then decisions to allow what followed would have been hampered.)

The interview was innocent enough at first; the subject turned to a discussion of the Holy Spirit’s manifest presence in a meeting, as opposed to His presence that dwells within our hearts always. Rather suddenly something began to happen in the control room. It began with Greg; he was seated behind me listening and for shuddering sobs that he attempted to muffle with his hand. It was hard to ignore and Randy paused in mid sentence to comment, "You can’t really se him but God is really dealing with the fellow behind you right now."

I looked over my shoulder just in time to see Greg loosing control; he stood up only to crash to the floor directly in front of the console, where he lay shaking for several minutes.

(Now, although we do have incidences in the Bible and SOP where people when confronted with a direct view of a Holy being or the close presence of the Holy Sprit, have fallen to their faces in helplessness. But lets look at this; the Bible Prophets, such as Isaiah, Daniel, and John, when receiving a vision of Christ, report falling to their faces in helplessness and great humility and Daniel said that he did not breath. In each case the persons involved were either directly or indirectly seeking the Lord at the time of the vision.

I don’t know if you have ever tried to conduct a radio interview in such circumstances, but let me assure you, I never have. I was mortified, we have always attempted to avoid any extremes at FM 92, so it was difficult to explain to our listeners what was happening.

I had always known Greg to act like a professional, so I knew something was seriously going on. I did my best to recover the interview under the embarrassing circumstances; I thanked the guest and wrapped it up, and thought of ways to kill Greg later.

(Interesting comment from someone who claimed to be a born-again Christian!)

And when we had a guest minister in the station we ask him to pray for the staff. Before Randy Clark left, we asked him to say a word of prayer. We formed a circle and began to pray for the staff one by one. My eyes were shut but I heard a thud and opened them to see Bart M___ prostrate on the floor. He had fallen forward on his face. What amazed me was that Bart was known to be openly skeptical. He simply did not accept such things.

Within seconds, another, and another staff person went down. Even those that remained standing were clearly shaken. When they prayed for me, I did not fall down; what did happen was an electric sensation shot down my right arm and my right hand began to tremble uncontrollably. My heart pounded as I became aware of the powerful sense of what can only be called God’s manifest presence. Remember, our staff is not primarily charismatic. We are Episcopalian, Nazarene, Evangelical, Pentecostal and a couple of us not quite sure.

While personally associated with an Assembly of God church, I am quite skeptic when it comes to weird stuff. I don’t watch many evangelists on TV because too often I’m turned off by what I see. This was completely new to us. Randy was scheduled elsewhere so after just a few minutes of prayer, he thanked me graciously and left quickly.

Our staff remained in the control room staring at each other wide-eyed and hovering over Bart who still appeared unconscious on the floor. He was completely immobile for over half an hour. There was a sweet atmosphere of worship in the room, so I told someone to put one of those integrative worship CDs on the air while we continued to pray together.

I thought the atmosphere would abate after a few minutes and return to normal, but instead our prayers grew more and more intense. The room became charged in a way I simply cannot describe. After an hour of this we realized that it was ten thirty, the time we normally share our listeners needs in prayers.

I switched on the mike and found myself praying that God would touch every listener in a personal way. After prayer, with great hesitation I added, "This morning God has really been touching our staff so we have been spending the morning praying together. If you are in a situation right now where you’re facing a desperate need, just drop by our studios this morning and we’ll take a minute to pray with you."

This was the first time we’d ever made such an invitation. This is where everything went haywire. Within a few minutes a few listeners began to arrive. The first person I prayed with was a tall man who shared with me some tremendous needs he was facing. I told him I would agree with him in prayer.

As I prayed for his needs a voice in my head was saying, ‘It’s a shame you don’t operate in a real spiritual gift of power. Here’s a man who really needs to here from God and you’ve got nothing worth giving him.’ I continued to pray but I was struggling. I reached up with my right hand and touched his shoulder when suddenly he shook and flumped to the floor. He lay there without moving for over two hours. I was shocked and shaken.

Two others had arrived at this point, staff members were praying with them. Suddenly they began weeping uncontrollably and slumped to the floor. The scene was repeated a dozen times in the next few minutes.

It didn’t matter who did the praying, whenever we asked of the Lord He immediately responded with a visible power and the same manifestations occurred. I didn’t know whether to be terrified or thrilled but clearly something completely unusual was going on.

A young man cautiously entered the room and began to tell us he was just happening to be scanning the radio dial when he heard something about prayer. He reported that he was immediately overcome with conviction. Years before he’d been contemplating going into the ministry and he’d attended a couple of years at a Christian college but he had since strayed from God. As a chill of conviction swept him, he felt God suddenly telling him it was now or never. He drove to the station. We prayed with him to receive Christ as Lord and afterward he too slumped to the floor.

One by one they came; we continued to play praise-oriented music and every hour, sometimes on the half hour, we’d invite people to come. Fairly early in all this we ran out of room. The radio station floor was wall-to-wall bodies; some weeping, some shaking, some completely still. People reported that it was like a heavy lead apron had been placed over them. They were unable to get up all they could do was worship God.

Fortunately our offices are inside the complex at Central Assembly, so when the crowd began to grow we moved across into the church leaving the radio station literally wall to wall with seekers. Some teachers at __Christian School had heard what was happening and asked us to pray for certain children they had been bringing in the room. As we prayed for the kids, many began to shake and fall on the floor. Some would begin to utter praises to God, others lay completely immobile for periods of over half an hour.

If you’ve ever tried to make a seven-year-old lay still, you know it’s a miracle. A few simply experienced nothing at all. By now I was convinced that we were experiencing a bona fide movement of God. I had read about such manifestations experiences being common in the revival meetings of great men like Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley. I’d also read of the great campmeeting revivals of the early 1800s where thousands upon thousands experienced being slain. But I never imagined that I would really live to see it.

The crowd continued to grow and lines began to form. The power of God continued to fall on those coming. It was almost like being in a dream. I would look up and see our staff members, eyes red, face puffy, hands trembling with the fire in their eyes and the power of God upon them. I couldn’t believe it was the same people I knew and worked with. In a matter of hours something we never ever dreamed of, much less aspired to, was happening

The floor in front of the sanctuary was soon covered with men and women, boys and girls. The aisles began to fill as we were pushing aside chairs for more floor space. Usually one of our staff would catch the person as he fell, but on quite a few occasions we were caught by surprise and people fell hard on the floor. Frankly, we had no idea what we were doing. I am not sure I wanted to learn.

At some point I looked up and saw a local Baptist pastor walk in the door. I must confess that my first though was, oh boy, I’m in trouble. I knew this brother to be a genuine man of God, nevertheless I was concerned about how a fundamental, no nonsense Baptist might take all these goings on. Besides, I didn’t have any explanations to offer.

I walked up to greet him; he just silently surveyed the room and with a tone of voice just above a whisper said, "This is God. For years I have been praying for revival, This is God."

Within minutes more local pastors began to arrive, Lutheran, independent, Assembly of God. Word of what was happening spread like wildfire. As the pastors arrived, they were cautious at first, but within just minutes they would often begin to flow in the same ministry. The crowd was growing and pastors began to lay hands on the seekers. Where once again the power of God would manifest and the seeker would often collapse to the ground. It did not seem to matter who did the praying. This was a nameless, faceless, spontaneous move of God. There were no stars, no leaders and frankly, there was no organization. It’s hard to plan for something you have no idea what might happen.

Eventually, word of what was occurring reached Fred Grew, the Melbourne pastor who had brought Randy Clark to the station earlier that morning. He and Randy along with several other Melbourne pastors jumped in the car and headed down to ___ beach. At this point we started broadcasting live from the church. As the group from Melbourne arrived, more and more people began to show up asking for prayer. It seemed like there were always more than we could get to.

Amazingly unchurched, unsaved people were showing up. I got a fresh glimpse of the power of radio as person after person told us. "I’m not really part of any church." A few were sceptical at first and later found themselves kneeling in profound belief.

Sometimes people would rise up only to frantically announce to us that they had been healed of some physical problem. One woman’s arthritic hands found relief. Neck pains, jaw problems, stomach disorders, and more, were all reported to us as healed.

We had received at least a dozen verified, credible, reliable comments from people who told us, that when they switched on the radio, they were suddenly, unexpectedly overwhelmed by the presence of God even when they didn’t hear us saying anything. Several told up that the manifest presence of God was so strong in their cars that they were unable to drive and were forced to go off the road.

This falling aspect of this manifestation was the most visible manifestation, but it was not falling that was important. What was important was the fact that people were raising up with more love for God in their hearts than ever before they were being changed. I’ve lost count of the numbers of people who told me of the change God worked in their lives.

It’s hard to imagine the impact this had on our staff. It seems like God had almost given me a new staff composed entirely of men and women with tremendous zeal for God. What is occurring in our local churches is even more amazing. My phone is ringing with the calls of excited pastors. At least a dozen area churches from completely different ends of the theological spectrum are already experiencing this powerful movement in their church.

The leaders of many, many local fellowships have been visiting these churches to check it out and they too are being touched to take it back with them. It’s almost like a tidal wave has hit this area of Florida.

If you are sceptical, I understand and forgive you. I might have thrown a letter like this one away just a few days ago. I share this only to try and offer a faithful rendition of what really has happened. I only ask that you remain open to whatever God wants to accomplish through you.

Christian history is full of accounts of those times when God elected to visit His people. When He has, entire nations have sometimes been affected. I believe you will agree. Our nation is ripe for such a revival. For such a time as this, let us look to God with expectancy.

With warm regards, I am sincerely yours

John Hamilton general manager