I had a bit of a surprise at the start of the evening service. As the last worship song played, Sharath leaned over to me and told me that one of the pastors was naming his baby tonight. (In India it is not uncommon to call the child by a "pet name" and not select their name until they are four or five years old. Some babies are named as early as 3 or 4 weeks old, but most are named later.) Then Sharath told me that the pastor wanted me to officiate the naming ceremony and select the baby girl's name. That sort of freaked me out because I thought the parents should select the baby's name. But Sharath explained that in India, it is not uncommon for the parents to ask the pastor to select the name. About half of the time the parents/family choose the name and about half of the time they ask the pastor to prayerfully select it. The only constraint that was on me was that I must choose a bible name. The little girl they wanted me to name was about 1.5 years old, and I would not get to see what she looked like until the ceremony began and she was brought before me.
(I did not find this part out until after the service, but the reason the pastor wanted me to name his daughter was because I had prophesied to him the previous afternoon and he had been deeply touched by the prophecy.)
I must say that some of the Indian customs are really different from what I am used to in America and it felt scary to have the responsibility to select a name for this child. So I began to pray and ask God what name He would suggest for this little girl. God spoke to me really clearly on this (thank goodness!) and told me to name the girl Esther. The reason God wanted to name her Esther was because she, like Queen Esther, would be beautiful both in physical appearance and in character. Also, God was going to grant her favor with just about everyone she encountered and she would be known for her faith and for her graciousness. So when it came time to do the ceremony, I prophesied what God had told me over the little girl and then gave her the name Esther. Her parents seemed pleased with that name, which was a big relief to me.
When it came time for the sermon, I pulled out the notes the Lord had dictated to me that morning. There were just a very rough outline. "Ok, Lord," I prayed, "I need you to fill in the details here. Please put Your words in my mouth and let it be Your sermon."
God put that special anointing on me to preach again. I must say that I was very good and used a lot of humor and acted out a lot of things.. but it wasn't really me or my preaching ability, it was the Holy Spirit. The main theme was from Acts 2 and His empowerment to be His witnesses. It started by explaining that there is a war between God's kingdom and the devil's kingdom, and that as God's kingdom advances the devil looses ground. He doesn't like this very much, so he fights back and resists what God is doing. When we are empowered by God to be His witness, then we take ground from the devil and we must expect him to resist us. But Jesus already won authority over the devil (defeated him) when He rose from the dead, and He gives us His authority to be victorious -- but we will have to fight battles in order to win them. Then it put a bit of the focus on the infilling and empowerment of the Holy Spirit as per Acts 2 and Acts 4 to be His witnesses. God had me spend time developing some of the things (including some manifestations) that can happen when the Holy Spirit fills us. After all that, God had me ask them if they wanted to be filled and empowered with His Holy Spirit to be His witnesses.
They all said "yes", so we began to pray and cry out to God and invite His presence. And He came, oh did He come! First He fell on the people with great power -- many were crying out and shouting (I think it was tongues, but I don't speak Telegu, so I can't be sure). Some were shaking and some were crying. A few were wailing. There was a strong intensity of God's presence in the room for about 15 minutes and it was really wild. Then it began to quiet down and the tone of the room changed. It was like most of them were slain in the spirit while sitting up in their chairs or sitting cross-legged on the floor. From time to time the Spirit would fall on a given individual and they would go into what looked like hysterics with shaking and screaming. But for the most part He seemed to do a quiet thing in the people -- He was on them strongly and He was meeting them. I led them in various prayers (mostly worship and adoration) from time to time as the spirit moved.
At one point God had me release a prophecy for revival in India and part of that prophecy said to the Indian people in the meeting "I am giving you the nation of India." It was a very powerful prophecy but I can't remember precisely all that God said in it.
Shortly after that, God told me to put down the microphone and give Him control of the meeting. So I knelt down on the platform and let God have the meeting. Sharath would pray into the microphone in Telegu but I could not understand what he was saying.
There would be a fresh wave of the Spirit from time to time, and the intensity and volume in the room would go way up. Then it would sort of settle down again and get very peaceful but even in the midst of this peace, you could sense the nearness of God.
We spent more time waiting on the Lord and resting in His presence. This went on for a very long time, for over an hour. Some of the people got restless and began looking around the room. You could tell by looking at them that this had gone beyond their attention span and they were out of the spirit. A few got up and quietly left. But the majority of the people stayed strongly in the Lord's presence for well over an hour. Service was supposed to end at 10 and it was already almost 11. Still they waited before the Lord and still there were occasional waves of the Spirit's intense presence. God was filling and anointing and empowering His people to be His witnesses.
I began to be concerned that maybe this was going on too long and maybe I should end it. But God reminded me that it was not my service any longer. I began to get so concerned about the ones who were restless that it pulled me out of the Spirit for about 10 minutes. I began praying that God would be sure to end the service when He was done. I was still kneeling on the platform, with my face on the ground. But I was not feeling His presence as strongly because I had become distracted by a small minority of the people who were getting restless. Then I managed to get my focus back on the Lord and feel His presence again.
There was a tap on my shoulder. It was Sharath, asking me if I had anything else to say. I said "No." I had no intention of taking over the meeting because God had told me not to. Then suddenly I grabbed the microphone. I am not quite sure why I did this but I think I was not in the center of His will. And I led them in a 3 or 4 minute prayer that began by worshipping God and proclaiming His goodness and glory. Then the prayer began thanking Him for what He did and then it drifted into asking Him to continue to empower us, week after week, to be His witnesses. Then I said "Amen." And when I did, everyone else said "amen," and unbowed their heads and looked up at me. I handed the microphone back to Sharath.
I felt terrible because I had just ended the meeting, and I don't think God was done yet. It was 11:15. I was reminded that God had told me to keep my hands off the meeting and I'd disobeyed. I began silently repenting to God and telling Him I would never do that again.
People sort of stayed in their seats for a bit. One lady stood up and said something in Telegu and the others seemed to agree with what she said. Sharath gave me a short translation -- "This has been so good we don't want to leave." That made me feel even worse about killing the meeting before God was done. I apologized to Him yet again. (That experience taught me a powerful lesson about not being pressured by what I think the people want but to simply yield to the Holy Spirit.)
Then I was asked if I would pray for people and I said, "yes". Sharath was so exhausted he could hardly stand, so I asked Victor to translate for me. He agreed and we ministered to people for over an hour. There were a lot of physical healings, but not everyone who was prayed for was healed. Also two demonized people were brought to me for deliverance and I commanded the demons to leave them.
Because it was the last night, everyone wanted prayer. There were still several people waiting for prayer (and some of the pastors wanted personal prophecy) at 12:30. But Victor told me that it was too late for him and he could not translate anymore. His wife and son were standing by the door waiting for him and he could not keep them waiting any longer. So I was effectively forced to stop praying for people before I was "done." Some people did not get prayed for, except a 10 second blessing prayer that I did quickly for the remaining 30 or so people who were still waiting for prayer, touching each briefly on the forehead.
Even though I had messed up the end of the meeting, it was still a very powerful meeting. God had showed up and met His people during the corporate ministry time. I had been disobedient about doing that closing prayer. But because I repented, God still anointed me during the individual ministry time. He is so good. I am glad He does not disqualify us when we make mistakes!
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