Impartation

I would like to tell you some impartation stories to help illustrate what I have been talking about. God is looking for people who are hungry and desperate for Him. And most of the stories I will share did not happen not at a point of success, they did not happen when things are going great. Many of the stories happened at a point where things begins to fall down around them, where the church begins to go through a struggle.

One of my friends, Gary Oates, started five churches. He has been in ministry for thirty years and he had had the largest church in the city of Knoxville. One day, God called him to walk away from it. He moved to Florida and started another church. After that, he started several churches in Georgia. Then about two years ago Gary was in a position where he had not received a salary in six months. The reason he hadn't received a salary in six months was in one week almost twelve families moved away from his church -- not because they are mad or angry, but because they got changed jobs and other things. They literally moved out. It devastated his church. He wasn't even able to draw a salary. He was discouraged. He came on a trip with me, and said, "God, you've gotta touch me!"

He heard this guy talking about how he had been healed of Down's Syndrome when he was six years old. That person, named David, has talked about all sorts of supernatural revelation that he has experienced, including seeing heaven and going up into heaven. As Gary listened to David speak, he became hungrier and hungrier to have the same type of experiences with God that David had. We were sitting on a bus going to a meeting as this conversation took place. Gary shared now much he wanted it, so David laid his hands on Gary and he said "May give you what you are looking for."

And Gary prayed, "God I want to see. I want to see." And that night in worship, Gary's spirit left his body and he's in a trance much like Ezekiel in Chapter 8 of Ezekiel. He literally didn't go into heaven though, he just kind of went into the sky and he could look down and see everything. And during that experience the Lord came to him and touched him and he saw Him. And when he came back into his body it was with so much power it knocked him back several rows of chairs, almost knocked another pastor down. He laid on the floor weeping and trembling under the power of God.

From that day to this, Gary has been able to see in the spirit realm where he couldn't before after 30 years of walking with the Lord. What accounted for the change in Gary's life? That change came when David (who walking in those type of supernatural experiences) laid hands on Gary and prayed that God would give him the same thing. That was an example of an impartation.

Gary's impartation was not just limited to seeing in the spirit and having visions with God. he also picked up some degree of David's healing anointing. He began seeing healings when he prayed for people as never before, and Gary especially has a great anointing to heal deaf people. In just three years, Gary has prayed for almost one hundred deaf people who were completely healed. And Gary didn't have that anointing to heal the deaf before either. That also came when David laid hands on him.

And since that impartation, both Gary and his wife are happier in Christ than they have ever been in their lives. He went from burned-out and ready to quit to being on fire for God.

And that couple, Gary and his wife, have much more joy than I have ever seen in them before that impartation. In fact, his wife was a mess. She was giving Gary an extremely difficult time until she went with me on a different trip and God touched her.

How did God touch her?

One of the local churches prepared a meal for our team. After we had finished eating, somebody started singing - they just spontaneously began singing a worship song. The drummer from the worship team grabbed a couple Igloo coolers and started beating on them for the drums, and before long others are beating on the chairs, beating on the tables. They were doing these syncopated rhythms. Then some started dancing. So we sang and we worshipped and we lost track of time. We ended up worshipping for close to four hours of just singing and worshipping. And after four hours, Gary's wife (who came there a very angry, very wounded and very sad) was drunk in the Lord. In fact she was so drunk that she couldn't walk. She crawled up to me on her hands and knees, slurring her words. She was just out of it.

How do you know that her being drunk in the Spirit was not just a psychosomatic suggestion? Well, one of the reasons is that night we went to a Baptist church. We had about 700 squeezed into the church, with an additional 5000 in the street trying to get in. And for the first time in her life she saw this translucent being come over people when we were doing words of knowledge. She was behind us. And she asked, "Was I seeing things or is this really God?" And then when we started praying, the people who began later to wave their hands like this were the people who the angels had come to stand behind them. Later that night she's praying for a woman and the woman's not getting healed. And she saw in the spirit this angelic being come behind her and put its wings around her and in that moment the woman was healed.

When you receive this type of power, your feet are strengthened. You're going to walk and not grow weary, run and not faint. All of a sudden you can sore like on the wings of the eagles. My wife and I had similar experience in our life. I was so discouraged just before God touched me. My wife was saying "Leave the ministry". I was thirty-two years old and I had been in the ministry fourteen years. She was so burned out, hurt and, wounded. And she said, "Randy, leave the ministry and become a teacher." But when the Spirit of God came on her, all that changed in an instant.

My wife was originally very much against falling down. We'd watch television and if we saw somebody fall down, she would say, "If you think that's real, you're the biggest fool I've ever met!" Then she would run out of the room, slam the door and not talk to me for the rest of the night. I guess you could say my wife was not "psychologically predisposed" to fall down. But in the conference we had in my little Baptist church in 1984, Bob Shimon, (pastor of First Baptist Church of Chillicothe, Illinois) was standing right in front of my wife. My wife was burned out and had taken a job and worked on Sunday so she didn't have to come to church. And we had just had a revival and she wouldn't come one single night. But for some reason she came that morning and sat on the front row.

Blaine Cook was ministering. He prayed for Bob Shimon, who had been in a car accident and had a half-inch lift in his heel because of this injury to his back. He had experienced severe spinal pain for years. Bob Shimon, this big pastor of Chillicothe, Illinois, got slain in the spirit. He fell right at my wife's feet -- his head at her feet. She told me later, "You know, it wasn't as bad in person as it is on television."