Open Heaven

I think I made some mistakes in trying to practice as I learned to work with angels. One time I told the team, "Hey, let's just command them to do things." The healings went up, but I felt like later God said, "Don't command them." Even Jesus did not command when He walked on the earth. Instead He said, "I will appeal to my Father to send twelve legions of angels."

Another time I was in another place. I was praying for a woman. She could not move very well and she had no feeling on that left side of her body. That is dangerous because she could cut her foot and it would bleed and she would not know it. She could burn herself and not know it. She had no feeling on the left side of her body. She also had really bad pain on her right knee. (That's one thing good about not having feeling; you do not feel your pain, even if it is awfully dangerous.) So I was praying and I thought, "Lord, I just want to experiment a little bit here." I was down on my knees and I had my hands on her knees. I was praying for the pain in the right knee to leave and for the the feeling to come back in the left side. So I said [in Portuguese], "Angels of God, help me." It no more came out of my mouth than she fell over and got healed.

Whoa, that was interesting. You see, the Bible tells us that angels are sent to serve those who inherit eternal life. Hebrews 1:7 says, "He makes His angels winds, His servants flames of fire."

Please turn with me to Acts chapter 2:1-3. You have heard this passage many times. I have heard people teach on it. But after I saw that, I read it again. "When the Day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly the sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them." Now look at verse 4, "All of them were filled with Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues as the Spirit enabled them."

I believe that we have limited what God did on the Day of Pentecost. Traditionally, we have only said that on the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church. That is the truth. But it is not the whole truth. The whole truth is, not only was the Holy Spirit poured out upon the Church, but on that day grace was opened up to the cross and resurrection of Jesus, to His ascending to the Father, and now sending the Spirit out upon the Church. The angelic hosts that were created to serve those who would have eternal life were released by the same grace that caused the Holy Spirit to come upon the Church.

Often in Scripture you see God riding upon His angels. That sound of the mighty rushing wind was the sound of the angelic beings coming to that place. And those flames of fire, what seemed to be flames of fire ('what seems' is the language of metaphor analogy) -- it was not real fire, but it looked like fire and angels often appear like that. Then the Holy Spirit came and they spoke in tongues, and God gave them this power. So Omar was right. We should say, "Come, Holy Spirit! And God, we beseech You, send Your angels also into this meeting and help us!"

The pastor of the church I currently attend is a Methodist holiness-type guy, a great man of God with a church of over three thousand. (I don't know exactly how many members there are, but it is a big church.) He is a solid guy. He is not flaky, and he is not easily deceived. In three months the church raised over fifty thousand dollars to send twenty-five of their youth with us.

His son, his wife and his other son were with us last July. I was going up into the hotel in my room, and I heard a lot of noise. The pastor's son's name is Brandon and he is sixteen years old. He said, "Oh my gosh! I am seeing angels! They are everywhere! They are everywhere! They are funny, too. They are doing weird stuff! They have a sense of humor! I cannot believe I am seeing them!" I was thinking, "I think I have talked about this too much and maybe it is just his imagination." I was thinking that he is young, he is sixteen years old, and maybe it is a psychological thing, you know. That is what I was thinking.

I could not get real excited about it yet, because I was not sure about this young guy. I was thinking, "It is not fair, God, because I am fifty-two years old and I have been asking for this! And I have been asking for my eyes to see. It is not right that this young sixteen year old guy hears one message about it and then enters into it! That would not be fair."

So Brandon came home. One day his dad was getting ready to preach on Sunday. He was sitting in the corner of the room studying the Bible about what he is going to preach. (His dad, my pastor, told me this.) He said, "All of a sudden I felt like an electrical force on the side of my head, like somebody put his hands there and they were electrified. Just a few minutes later my son Brandon came through the door and he said, 'Whoa, Dad! You have an angel right beside you!' I said, 'Where is he, Brandon?' He said, 'He is actually standing behind you.' I said, 'Brandon, what is he doing?' He said, 'He has his hands on your head. This is angel revelation, Dad. Jamie..." (one of my interns) "...has been teaching me how to recognize what they are for.'" (It is a good thing that I have Jamie on my team because I could not teach Brandon that!)

My pastor continued. "Brandon said, 'He is bringing you revelation as you are studying the word. He is giving you revelation, Dad. He has his hands on you.' I said, 'Brandon, take your hands and put your hands on your head the way the angel is touching me.' Brandon demonstrated, 'Dad, his hands are just like this.' Now I had tears in my eyes." My pastor told me, "I cannot believe what God is doing to my son." His son now is praying for almost everyone. He went to his teacher and said, "Something is wrong with your leg. God just told me that something is wrong with your leg. I got a word of knowledge. Can I pray for your leg?" The teacher said, "How did you know that?" He said, "God tells me stuff. Can I pray?" "Yeah!" Brandon prays all over the place. He prays for everybody in the high school. He is seeing, he is feeling. God is activating!

I am telling you, this is an exciting time in which we are living. These are signs, that is what they are. Phenomena are just signs. I want to see, and I want to hear. I thank God that I can feel. I was encouraged one night when I was in Manaus. You know when the anointing is getting strong. I was preaching, and I was actually using a lot of Portuguese. I am not fluent in Portaguese. I can pray in Portuguese, but I cannot preach in it. But the words were coming and I could not believe it. It went on a lot longer than I thought it would.

Gary told me later, "Randy, at one point when you were preaching, all of a sudden my eyes were opened, and there was an angel right beside you." He said, "I have seen. You have an angel that travels with you, and I saw it. It was walking right beside you. He was whispering into your ear what you were saying, like he was giving you the words to say." I tell you, that makes preaching more exciting to get help like that. Now, he is not always there, so I cannot say that everything I say is that direct. But there are times that it comes.

One night there were ten thousand people in Manaus and I was getting ready to preach my message. I have preached it many times, it is one of my favorite sermons. I was standing there with the guy introducing me. I felt like the Lord gave me a text. He said, "Preach that." I have never preached it. "Preach what out of it? What would I say? You just quickened this text to me. I do not have a sermon on that." I was thinking that it is probably not God. I said, "Lord, if it is really You, I need to know it is You." And all of a sudden, I was pushed, to the point that I literally stumbled. I turned around, and there was nobody there. I was pushed! I was pushed off balance to the point where I had to move my feet to catch my balance. I turned around, there was nobody there. But I felt like He was there. That gave me the courage to go ahead and just read the text and just believe whatever, and just let it come.

In Luke 3:16, John the Baptist was speaking and talks about Jesus, "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." I used to say that this is the weakest point of the sermon, but then I had some Greek scholars tell me, "Randy, that is one of his strongest points." Here is what it said, "AND." 'And' is not the language of metaphor. 'And' is not the language of 'like' or 'as.' 'Like' and 'as' or 'seems to be' are all language of comparison. But it does not say that. It says, "Jesus Christ shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." These are two different things that He baptizes us with.

One guy wrote to me and said, "But in the context, it is talking about purification. So even though that may be right, it could be the purifying aspect of the Holy Spirit." Doctor Somebody is writing this e-mail, and he said, "Then I was reminded about Isaiah chapter 6. God is in the throne room, and Isaiah sees God. All he can say is 'Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips, living amongst a people of unclean lips.' The Lord spoke to the angel to go and get a coal of fire from the altar and to come and touch his lips and purify the servant." He said, "When I understood that, I saw that they can have a role even in this purification as well."