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-- © GodSpeak International 2003 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.org> --
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES
Author: H. A. Baker
Guest Author for lessons 1, 2 and 20: Teresa Seputis
Editors: Adam Weoger (original Ebook) and Teresa Seputis

Excerpts from
Visions Beyond The Veil
by H. A. Baker

Lesson 1
Overview
By Teresa Seputis

This next teaching series is going to be a bit different from what we have previously done on the prayer-school. This is because most of the teaching material is taken from the first nine chapters of an out-of-print book called Visions Beyond The Veil. The book was written in the 1920s by H. A. Baker, who is Rolland Baker's Grandfather. H. A. Baker and his wife Josephine were missionaries to China in the 1920s, where they ran an orphanage for poor beggar children. His rather amazing book describes a visitation the Lord made to the children and how their lives were effected by it.

The book is out-of-print and no longer available in bookstores, but it has become popular because of the work that God is doing through Rolland Baker and his wife Heidi in the nation of Mozambique.

The book is not copyrighted and it is available free of charge on the public domain internet. This teaching series won't reproduce the whole book. The last three chapters are Mr H.A. Baker's personal theologies and apologetics to process/explain the experiences described in the book. If you are interested in those chapters, you can read them on the internet. (In fact, we have a copy of the book at http://www.godspeak.net/veil).

This teaching series will include the first nine chapters of Visions Beyond the Veil and also a portion of the introduction. These chapters detail the visitations and visions that the children (and others at the premises) experienced. You will read some incredible and some alarming stuff in here. Children were converted, baptized in the Holy Spirit and some prophesied and some preached (and even converted adults) and some performed deliverances. Some of the children had visions of Jesus and of heaven and of angels. Others of the children had visions of Hell and of what happens to the unsaved when they die. Some had visions of Christ's second coming. Some had rather unusual physical manifestations that accompanied their visions.

How seriously should we take these reports? I tend to believe that the vast majority of them are literal supernatural experiences that the children had with God. It is possible that a few children have embellished their reports to Mr Baker or that some children had their imagination run away with them. Children may see and experience things and not be able to understand/report them accurately. At times a child's imagination may engage in a real experience in a way where the child can't tell what is "real" from what they "wish" was real.

I remember one time where this happened at a renewal meeting in San Francisco. I had a friend named Jan who was sick with terminal cancer. Jan's eight year old daughter was prayed for at the renewal meeting and she went "out in the spirit" for about 30 minutes. [This girl was not the type to keep still for any length of time -- most eight year olds are not -- so I believe that God really did meet this child in some way.] When she "sat up", she reported a vision of angels and heaven. In her vision, some parts of heaven were under water and she could breathe water like we breathe air. She was able to walk on the ground or float in the water. She described many beautiful trees and plants that are unlike anything we have in our world. She was very jubilant when she sat up, and reported that heaven is a very happy place. She had met Jesus and had interacted with many angels.

She also had an important piece of information about her mother. The angels told her that her mother was going to get well and live for a long time until the girl was all grown up. Some portions of her vision had matched visions others experienced at the same meeting. So many people put a lot of credibility on the vision. They took the girl's report of the angel saying her mom would get better as a promise from God. It increased the whole family's faith to the point where Jan even began to refuse some of the standard medical treatments for cancer. But Jan did not get well. She continued to deteriorate slowly over time until she finally died about two years later.

The daughter probably really did have a vision of heaven, Jesus and angels. But she appears to have embellished it by adding the promise of her mother's recovery. She wanted that to be true so badly that she could not distinguish between what she had really seen in the vision and what she had made up.

There is always the potential of credibility issues when a child reports supernatural experiences. They may mix elements from their imagination into a real vision that God gives them... such as Jan's daughter wanting her mother to get well. If you find a vision or report in this book that you find problematic, you may want to prayerfully evaluate it. Children are capable of letting their imaginations run away with them. But don't automatically discount it, as it might have really happened.

Many children in this book reported the same details and same experiences before they had a chance to touch bases with each other to compare stories. There were a lot of biblical elements in the visions that were things the children did not know because they had not been exposed to it. And the changes in their life and behavior strongly bear out that most of the children did indeed have a supernatural encounter with God. I understand that a child's imagination may effect their perception, I like to think that most of what is reported in the book is real and accurate.

The Book's Relevence To Us Today

So, why are we studying this in the prayer-school? It is because we believe that God is pushing His church to expand their vision. He wants His people to be open to the things He desires to do today. God did not intend for us to have "church" on Sundays and Wednesdays and then go about our own business the rest of the week. God does not expect us to simply go to Church -- He expect us to actively BE THE CHURCH. He desires for His people to do the same things Jesus did (John 14:12-14) and to be His witnesses (Luke 24:46-49) and to advance His kingdom (Matt 11:12) and to see what the Father is doing and do it with Him (John 5:19, John 5:30).

And most of us desire to do that with Him. But many Christians living in Westernized cultures have a problem that holds them back. They don't have the full picture of what God is like and of what He intends to do through them, so it is not possible for them to engage their faith in these areas. Our thinking and expectations have become very limited by what we see and experience around us. Many of our churches focus on teaching and logic and activities -- and have neglected the power side of the gospel. We are taught that Jesus and His disciples healed the sick. Yet very few of us do expect to see modern day disciples heal the sick and raise the dead. Why? Because it does not seem to happen very often in most places. So we stop expecting it. We stop believing for it, we stop praying for it. And that is how we loose our vision as the body of Christ.

And God wants to restore our vision.

He wants to give us back our vision of who He is and what He can do through us. God wants to open our eyes back up to the supernatural, to make both Heaven and Hell real to us again. He made it real to those children in the book. That is why I feel it is well worth looking at their experiences. H. A. Baker's grandson, Rolland, currently runs a missions orphanage in the nation of Mozambique. Some of their problematic children had had similar experiences to those in his grandfather's orphanage. Some of the naughtiest children have had visions of Jesus where He told them to stop sinning and start preaching. And they had immediate and permanent changes in their behavior as a result of their encounter with the Lord.

I think this book might help us begin to expand our vision so that we will begin to cry out to God for more of the things of His Spirit. James 4:2 says that we have not because we ask not and Matt 7:11 assure us that when we ask, we will receive. So this teaching series is intended as something to wet our appetites so that we might expand our vision and ask God for more things of the spirit.


-- © GodSpeak International 2003 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.org> --

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