Impartation

Sixty million people in China today are Christians because a latter rain guy had an influence there right out of San Jose, California. He did not tell me that but his pastor told me. The leaders of China said that seven of the top house leaders of the Church led 25 million people to Jesus Christ since 1970 starting with seven. They had 25 million Chinese that have come into the Kingdom of God and 80% of those Chinese came into the Kingdom after 1988. I was interviewing them in Bejing, China.

I asked "What happened in 1988?" They said, "In 1988 Dennis Balcolm came to us and brought us the Holy Spirit." Now that is their language, it is not mine. I would not have used it that way because of my theological training. There is this understanding that often there is a inverse correlation degree between the level of theological training and the size church you have. I mean it has been proven. There is a sociological study that the largest churches in the world are disproportionate to the level of theological training. And it's true. I am not against theological training, in fact I thank God that I got some training.

Let's get back to the interview. I asked, "What happened when the Holy Spirit came?"

They kicked out all the missionaries, in 1949. They put all the pastors in prison. And they tried to wipe out Christianity. And the Western Church wondered if there would be any church left behind the Bamboo Curtain. My friend Malcolm said one of the best things that happened was when all the missionaries got kicked out, because up to that time there was a Western form of Christianity. We brought in our doctrines and taught them the ceasationism -- that the gifts of the Spirit, especially the power gifts of tongues, interpretation of tongues, healing and miracle, and proxy ended at the canonization of Scripture after the death of the Apostles. There was division between Pentecostals and the Evangelicals in the missions in China.

But when all the missionaries were all kicked out, all they had left where a few hand written copies of the Bible. And their favorite book was the Book Of Acts because you could build a church on the basis of the Book Of Acts.

I asked, "What did t look like when the Holy Spirit came?" Of course I think they already had the Holy Spirit because you can't be a Christian without Him, but I knew what they were talking about. So I understood that what will they say when it is not based on Western missionaries teaching them how to interpret the Bible when they only had the Bible to themselves.

They answered, "Before the Holy Spirit came we were gray headed, all older people and we couldn't hardly get the younger people to come. And we were a crying church and a weeping church and a praying church and that is wonderful. But then the Holy Spirit came and we were not only that, we were a happy church! We were full of joy, we were drunk, we were falling down, we were laughing, we were crying, we were drunk, we were rolling on the floor, when the Holy Spirit came." And of course the mention of tongues was thrown in there with the rest of it.

"Well", I said, "what happened after that?" He said, "There was an eighty percent increase in miracles. And eighty per cent of the 25 million in the church came to the Lord after 1988.

God really is in the business of revival today!

This guy was up in Seattle and he said, "Randy, before we ever heard what was happening in Toronto in January 1994, I began to get reports from leaders all over China that something was happening. People were falling down, falling out of their pews (they don't have pews), falling off of chairs. They were crying, they were laughing, they were drunk, and yet they had not heard of Toronto. " He said, "The exact month that it happened in Toronto, it happened there."

David Hogan talked about, that he went down into the mountains of Mexico, and place where these Indians were. According to their culture you do not express emotion, you don't cry at a funeral, you don't laugh at a wedding. It is just not an emotional society. And he said the guy was illiterate, they didn't have any electricity, didn't have any books or anything and so there was no way they could have heard about Toronto. But he said he went down there. He said "I don't know what is wrong but when I was preaching people started falling out, and they began to cry and began to laugh, and they began to roll, just like in Azusa Street." When it happened in Azusa Street, it happened in Santiago, Chili, and it happened in India. It all happened almost exactly at the same time. And a world revival had hit. All of this happened in 1994.

Time is on my side, yes it is. I didn't know these stories in 1994. But I know them in 2005. In 1994 I couldn't say there is a person that got prayed for, got a prophesy, got an impartation. Today. six years later, somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 churches have been started. Of course I am talking about Heidi Baker. This great revival started with her and her husband and 12 men in the poorest country in the world. They did not have a denomination backing them up. Time is on my side, yes it is. In 1994 I didn't know about Leif Hetland, who in 1995 would have hands laid on and be prophesized to. And nine years later he'd report that 500,000 Pakistani's have come to the Lord and a thousand light houses of prayer (a code name for an underground church in Pakistan) have been established through his ministry. And why did this happen? It happened because he was at a meeting where we were at and we prophesized to him. And now we have 500,000 Pakistani's believing in Jesus as the Savior. Time is on my side, yes it is.

Jesus said you will be able to tell the false from the real by the fruit. You may say, well there is bad fruit with the real, and it will split a lot of churches. Jesus came for peace not division. And in the Bible it says, "I've come with a sword, I'll cause division within a person's household".

By the way, if division is not God, then we should all go back and join the Catholic Church because we just made the whole process of reformation of the devil. Sometimes we are just not consistent in our arguments. Every major move of God has produced division. Sometimes the division comes because of foolishness on the part of the leaders or people who got touched in the leaders.

For example the First Great Awakening wasn't called the First Great Awakening when it happened? Did you know that? If you lived at the time of that big first revival to hit America, the one that changed our culture, you would have called it the "Great Clamor." You know what a clamor is? Noise! Loud noise!

In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul tells Timothy to stir up the gift you received from the laying on of my hands. In the main epistles, especially the real doctrinal books you also see that emphasis. Romans is the greatest doctrinal book that Paul wrote. Romans 1:11 says, "I wanted to come to you that I might impart some spiritual gift to you, or rather that we might be mutually encouraged by one another's faith." Notice that Paul wanted to impart a spiritual gift into them.

In Acts 19:6, Paul just baptized the Ephesian disciples, whether they were disciples of John, which some people believed, or they were already Jesus' disciples, as the Pentecostals believed, when he baptized them. You have to be saved to be baptized -- you don't baptize the unbeliever, but it says you have to be a believer to be baptized. (It is called a believer's baptism.) So if you have a believers baptism and then after the believer baptism he lays his hands on them and then the Holy Spirit changes them -- then don't tell me it happened at conversion. Either that, or Paul got confused about believers baptism. You can't have it both ways.

All and all there is diversity in how things happen in the New Testament. I like diversity. "He laid his hands on them and they began to prophesy and they began to speak in tongues." Now again, I am not trying to emphasize one gift over another gift. The point is I believe that Jesus went to the cross not just to purchase forgiveness for our sins. As a matter of fact, John 7:37 says "On that great last day of the feast Jesus cried and said, 'If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink, and out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.' This He spoke of the Holy Spirit which had not yet been given because He had not yet been glorified." And in John's gospel, to be glorified meant to be crucified. It meant to be raised up in resurrection, to be raised up at the Father's right hand at the ascension. And then He would ask the Father, and then the Holy Spirit would be sent.