I was going to talk about prayer and fasting this morning, and
the Lord turned that a little bit, and I believe the reason
for it is we're preparing for open heavens and what's coming.
So to kind of give you a little bit
preparation, this Sunday I'm going to be talking
about that subject, which should be really interesting.
Next Sunday I'm going to talk about prayer and fasting.
The 21st,
the last Sunday right before Christmas,
I'm feeling, I'm not sure why
specifically, but I'm feeling strongly
I might end up talking about angels that morning.
And angelic activity, anything that happens
with the human race from God's perspective, there's angels involved.
And I, you know
it's not that, well I'll read your verse here in a bit,
it's not that they take the place of God, they work on behalf
of God, and they work with us.
And once you're saved, you get
your own personal angel or angels
who are going to be with you the rest of your life. So
for believers, angels are active and involved.
Revelation 22.8, John said
and I, John, am he who heard and witnessed these things, talking about what he wrote down
in the book of Revelation. And when I heard and saw them, I fell prostrate
before the feet of the messenger, the angel, who showed them to me
to worship him, to worship the angel. And the angel said to me
refrain, you must not do that.
I am only a fellow servant
along with yourself and with your brethren the prophets
and with those, this is the rest of us,
it was John, the prophets living at his time
and with those who are mindful of and
practice the truths contained in the messages
in this book. That's us.
They are fellow
servants with us. Angels
are working with us to see things accomplished for God as we're
working to try to let God do what he's wanting to do
in this earth. So in the 21st, I don't know if it keeps
going that way, I'll be talking about angels that Sunday. And the 28th
is going to be something special leading up to the
open heavens. We're trying
to do our part to lay the groundwork
for what's coming. Because I just have this feeling that God
wants to do something in the open heaven meetings that
is well beyond what we experience on a
weekly basis. It's as we honor him the beginning
of the year and say, God, it's all about you.
It opens things
for him to reciprocate on that.
And I'm really believing it's going to happen this year. Anyway, let's talk
about this subject. I thought I could do this like ask the
pastor a question and 10, 15 minutes blow through it and then move on.
And the more I refreshed and studied and looked at it,
the more I went, you know what, if I just take a glancing blow at this
people are going to have a lot of questions and maybe leave some
confusion and so forth. So I better make it the message. Let me
say at the end, I don't know how the end is going to go yet for sure, but we may
have room for a question and answer time. So if you get some questions while I'm
speaking jot them down and hopefully we can answer them at the end.
But it comes out of this, this message comes out
of some texts, some emails I've been receiving over the last few months.
And I'm just calling it
falling down when we're prayed for. For those of you who've been around
a long time, we, when I was growing up
everybody referred to that as being slain in the Spirit.
Which I always wondered, why would
you call it that? Because it's not in Scripture,
not that phrase. Why would you want the Holy Spirit to kill you?
You know, kind of thing. Of course,
as you get older, you start adding two and two together and so forth, but I still think
it's a funny phrase. You know, what happened to them? Oh, the Holy Spirit killed them.
I mean, it's like, for someone who is new in the Lord
or unsaved, they're going to look at that like, I'm never going to get in the prayer line.
Oh, nothing to do with that. Or we call it falling under the power. Things like that.
But anyway, let me read you. I'm just going to pick three of them
that I received. The first one was,
I attended your church and wanted to get prayed for. So they came here.
When I got in the prayer line, people were falling down.
So I did too. Is that something that is
supposed to happen when people get prayed for at the church?
Do I need to fall down every time I get prayed for at the church?
Good questions.
Second one was very short and to the point,
why do people fall down when they get prayed for?
And the third one was, I can't find where the Bible
says people need to fall down when they are prayed for.
Is this in the Bible? So the rest
of them are kind of the same theme. We're after the question of what is this
all about. So
I want to state two things right from the beginning.
Number one, anything that God does
is holy, needs to be reverenced, needs to be
respected, because it's God doing it.
And the second thing I want to state, because by the time
I'm done, I hope you won't question it, but just in case,
let me state right from the beginning, when falling
down when you're prayed for is real, I absolutely
believe it's of God when it's real.
Some of the most awesome experiences
happen when God does
that personal thing with people.
Now I'm going to make a big statement, so grab
your seat, hang on. When it's of God, I believe
it's absolutely real. I believe in it.
But I don't think a lot of what we see in the church
is of God and is real.
So I'm going to try to scripturally bring a
balance to what this is supposed to look like.
Because my opinion really doesn't matter.
Your opinion really doesn't matter.
It's what does God say about this.
So I'm going to come from what Scripture has to say about it
and measure it against the Scripture. And that may be different than
what you believe. So just try to stay objective.
Try to keep your thinking cap on so you can think about this and think it through.
Paul warned a couple of times to Timothy and Titus. He said,
don't get caught up in fables or commandments of men
because they will remove you from the truth. Well, I don't want
something going on
that actually hinders the truth and not helps
propel it forward. So we have to stick with what the Word says.
So we have to stick with what the Word says.
You can agree to that. You say, well, I don't know where you're going with this.
Well, we're going to the Word.
So let's
look at what the Word has to say about this. So
let me reset this because I don't have control
at the moment. So let me see if I can get that back.
It just makes it so much easier if I can control
the slides. Ah, there we go. That helped.
When it's real, this is Scripture now. Scripturally speaking,
when it's real, when someone falls down when they're being prayed for, and this is a
real deal, the reason a person will fall down is because the
power of God gets so strong in them, they can't stand.
That's Scripture. That's kind of a nutshell
of everything I'm going to talk about this morning. So as we go through
some of these Scriptures now, look for some common
themes here. Don't just, well, Pastor O'Reid
him and he'll tell us what it means. You look for some common themes.
And I've got a few here that I'm questioning. I don't know if it was
a, they couldn't stand and went down because of that, or
they chose to go prostrate before God. Not
sure which it is, so I'll point that out. This is the first one. I'm not
sure. And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of meeting
and came out and blessed the people. Then the glory of the Lord appeared to all
the people and fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and fat on
the altar. When all the people saw it, they shouted and
fell on their faces. Now was that a falling down because
of the glory appearance and they were overwhelmed and
so forth? I think so. Because usually when the
glory shows up, that's a trigger
for the anointing to get on a person so strong that it's
difficult to stand. So I put it in that category because I
think so. But if you notice when all the people
saw it, they fell down. So if this is one of
those times, this wasn't
one or two people. This was thousands and tens of thousands
who saw this and went down.
Next one I also am not sure. It happened as the
flame went up from heaven, from the altar. The angel of the Lord ascended in the flame
of the altar. When Manoa and his wife saw this, they fell in their
faces to the ground. Now did they choose to fall or was
it overwhelming for them? And the story behind this
is Manoa and his wife were Samson's parents
and God came to
an angel came to the wife
and I don't remember her name right off hand but I believe she has one.
I'll just call her the wife.
An angel came to the wife and told her that you're going to have a son. She was barren.
She couldn't have children. Said you're going to have a son. God wants
him to be a Nazarite. So don't let any fermented
drink come to him. Don't let him drink anything that's fermented.
No wine, nothing like that. And part of Nazarite vows don't let
him cut his hair because he's going to be set apart for a special
purpose. So now here's something
interesting to me. If you
study what a Nazarite vow was,
the first thing God wanted to happen when
he pulled someone out for a special separation
from the world to himself. He wants them separated from
the world. The first thing he asked to go is alcohol.
Just put that in your
pipe and smoke it.
He didn't say anything about smoking, he said alcohol.
I'm just trying to keep you with me.
But put that in your mind and think about that.
Rattle that around some because we have such a liberal
society now, including in the church, toward alcohol
that
it's kind of interesting to me that even in the Old Testament where there was
just open game, God, when he wanted someone special
separated to himself, that was one of the main things he
wanted to stop is drinking alcohol.
First Kings 8, this one I'm pretty sure applies.
And it came to pass when the priests were come out of the holy place, the cloud filled the house of the Lord
so the priests could not minister because of the cloud, for the glory
of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.
They couldn't minister, they could not stand to minister, it says in verse 11.
So the glory came, they became overwhelmed with the power
of God and they couldn't stand anymore. Well that's what we're talking about, falling underneath
the power. Second Chronicle says the same thing, it came to
even to pass as the trumpeters and singers were as one to make one sound
to be heard and praising and thanking the Lord. And when they lifted up their
voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music and praising
the Lord saying, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever
and then the house was filled with the cloud, that's the glory
even the house of the Lord so that the priests could not stand
to minister by reason of the cloud. So this is a second
instance for sure, it's not the same one, it's a different setting.
Priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud, that's the glory.
For the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God, that's how we know
the cloud is the glory. Next verse
Ezekiel 1, I think it comes under he was overwhelmed
as the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain,
so the rainbow, so was the appearance of the brightness around about.
So Ezekiel was seeing a vision. This was the appearance
of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. Well, here we are back to the glory again.
And when I saw it, I fell on my face and I heard a voice of one that
spake. I'm presuming Ezekiel went down under the power
because again it's tied to the glory. Ezekiel 3
and then I arose and went forth in the plane, this is a different setting
and behold the glory of the Lord stood there as the glory which I saw
by the river Shabar and I fell on my face. Now it doesn't
say he was overcome, but I'm putting it in that category
because of the glory situation. And the last one
that I have a little bit of question on, but I think it is. And he brought
me by the way of the north gate to the front of the temple, so I looked and behold
the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord and I fell on my face.
So did he choose to go prostrate because he saw
or he saw the glory and was overwhelmed?
You decide, I'm putting it in the category of he was overwhelmed
and therefore could not stand. Here is one from
Daniel. So I have, by the time I'm done
I have about 16 scriptures that indicate this throughout the
Bible. Ten of them are, yeah, that was
that was falling under the power. Six of them, most of which
I just gave you, are iffy. I'm not sure. But there
should be ten in the scripture in the Bible that gives us clarity
that yes, this is God. Daniel 8.
So he came near to where I stood and when I came and when he came
I was afraid and fell on my face. But he said to me
understand, son of man, that the vision refers to the time of the end.
Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep with my
face to the ground. Okay, so the reason that I put that in the category
of he fell under the power is it says to begin with
he fell because he was afraid in verse 17.
But when he describes what happened to him on the ground
yeah, that I think he's under the power.
He was trying to explain. It's like I'm groggy, I'm out of it.
It's like I'm struggling with a deep sleep here
and my face is on the ground. Okay,
chapter 10. I Daniel alone saw the vision for the
men who were with me did not see the vision but had great terror fell
upon them so that they fled to hide themselves.
Therefore I was left alone when I saw this great
vision and no strength remained in me. See now this he's describing what it's
like to go down under the power. No strength remained
in me for my vigor was turned to frailty in me. His strength
became very weak and I retained no strength. Yet
I heard the sound of his words and while I heard the sound of his words
I was in a deep sleep on my face with my face to the ground.
That is a perfect description of going down under the power.
If it's real, it's going to feel
very much like that.
John 18. Now we're in the New
Testament. Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus saith unto them, I am he.
So here's where they're coming to the garden to arrest Jesus. Judas was
standing with the ones who came to arrest him. And Judas
also, which betrayed him, stood with them. This is the soldiers coming to
arrest Jesus. As soon as he had said unto them, I am he,
they went backward and fell to the ground.
So they went down under the power just by Jesus announcing
who he was. And the interesting part is Judas went down with them.
He was standing with them. Acts 9.
As he journeyed, he came near to Damascus and suddenly a light
shone around him from heaven. Then he fell
to the ground. Now remember, he was on a horse.
So I don't think he did that one on purpose.
Just fell off the top of a horse and hit the
ground. He got blown off by the...
suddenly a light shone around him from heaven.
Scripturally, what is that again? That's the glory.
Then he fell to the ground. He heard a voice saying, and Jesus starts speaking to him.
Went down under the power. Chapter 10.
This is Peter right
before he had his vision of the Gentiles are included
with the Jews and so forth. Verse 10, then he became very hungry, wanted to eat.
But while they were making the food ready,
he fell into a trance. Now I used to always think it meant
that, well, he went into a trance. But there
is some evidence from the original languages that he
actually fell forward
into the trance. The power God came on him.
He just went, hit the ground, and then he saw the vision.
So I added it in here. Revelation chapter 1.
In the midst of the seven lampstands, one like the Son of Man
clothed with a garment down to his feet, girded about the chest of the golden band.
This is Jesus, of course. His head and hair were like wool and white as snow, and his eyes were flame of fire.
His feet were like fine brass refined in the furnace, and his voice was the sound
of many waters. He had in his right hand seven stars and out of his mouth
one a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was like the sun shining in its strength.
That's quite a sight.
And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. Yeah, he went
down under the power. Of course, seeing that
and the glory and the fullness of it, I understand.
But he laid his right hand on me, saying to me, do not be afraid, I am the first
and the last. Okay? So out of those
group of scriptures, what are the common threads?
Falling down or the inability to stand was associated
with either the power or glory, the
presence of God manifested
or a visitation by an angel
or, like the last one we read,
Jesus manifested.
From what I see in scripture, and there might be some scriptures
I'm missing, and if you know of some, please give them to me. You know, I'd like
to add everything that is in the word that talks about
falling under the power. But from what I see in scripture,
those are the three times, and we just read you everything that I
know. Those are the three times that people go
down under the power. There are times
when people choose to go prostrate
or kneel down or lay down, and I'll just give you a few of those.
There's quite a few of those in scripture. I'll just give you
some references. Moses dealing with Korah and the rebellion,
that happened. Moses and Aaron, when God threatens to kill
Korah and his group, God, Moses and Aaron interceded for the group.
Moses and Aaron go before the Lord because the people were complaining
they chose to fall down before the Lord, or before the tent.
Joshua 5, Joshua sees the commander of the Lord's army
and he goes down in reverence. It's not under the power
but in reverence. Matthew 17.6, Peter, James and
John heard the Father's voice at the transfiguration and fell
because of fear. Luke 5, Peter at the supernatural
catch of fish, prostated himself
before Jesus. And Revelation 7, angels
and elders before the throne, they are choosing
to go prostrate before the throne. And I read you one where the angel
at the end of Revelation chapter 22 where it says we're fellow
servants, there John bowed down to worship. He didn't
go down under the power, he just bowed down to worship. So there's a difference
between us choosing to reverence God
which is great versus the power of God coming on us and we can't
stand. So make that distinction.
I'm going after the second one and talking about that.
So I want to repeat all of the times when the power and the presence of God
become so strong that the people fell down in Scripture
those are the three reasons. The glory,
the presence manifested, a visitation by an
angel or visitation by Jesus.
Do I believe those things happened and can still
happen? Absolutely. 100%.
That can still happen, it did happen.
However, here's where I think as
Charismatics, Pentecostals, Faith People, Spirit
Field People, et cetera, I think where we hit the ditch a little bit.
We've made the falling
down thing into something you can't find in Scripture. That's what you
find in Scripture.
That doesn't mean that when you're going down a prayer line and someone
falls down, it's absolutely not of God. I'm not saying that
because I've experienced and seen where it
is absolutely God. However,
there's no clear precedent in
Scripture that when I go up and pray for someone
and lay hands on them, they go down under the power. There's
no precedent for that in Scripture. You can't find it
to my knowledge. If I'm missing it, please help me.
But you can't find it. So with that
I get a little nervous. When we start doing
things that you can't see clearly in Scripture, makes me
nervous. Why? Because I'm going to answer for it.
The day's going to come, I'm going to stand before God, and He's going to say,
by the way, what were you doing?
And you were telling everybody it's okay. I mean,
I'm going to answer for it. So
if there's no clear precedent, it makes me nervous. It doesn't mean it's
not God. Let me give you a real
simple example. Going out and
busing people in for a service, is there a clear precedent
for that in Scripture? There aren't even
buses in Scripture.
But yet,
we do it, churches do it, it produces good fruit.
But there again, if you're going to
make it something that if every church isn't
busing somebody in, they're not a real church. Well see, now you're in a ditch.
So anytime it's something that there's not
a clear directive in Scripture, we have to be careful with it.
We really do. We have to be careful with it.
So I want to point some things out that I want you to notice.
Number one,
there's no place in Scripture
where someone fell down where they were being prayed for or hands were
laid on them. It's not in Scripture.
Do I believe it can happen? Absolutely.
Have I seen it happen? Absolutely.
So I'm there. All I'm saying is it doesn't
show up in Scripture. So what's my
conclusion? Well, my conclusion is this.
Of the number of Scriptures that talk about going down under the power of falling
down, well we'll just call it that because the glory or Jesus
showed up. Unless you can help me, which I'm open to help, give me help.
I can find ten that I'm certain
that happened there. Exactly.
God's power showed up and they went down. I have six of them that are
iffy. Could go either way.
Ten Scriptures that definitely say it
out of the entire Bible tells me one
thing. This isn't overly important.
If this was really important
God would have said it more times
than ten. But is it real? I believe it can be real, yes.
Here I think we as Spirit-filled churches
have gone a bit in error because of this.
Scripture doesn't make it important. Jesus never made
it important. Paul never made it important. The apostles never made it
important. But we make it important.
What's that? And we'll talk
about it a bit. So I just want to plant the fog. What's that?
Why do we make something that is only mentioned ten times
that important?
So my take away on that is this.
It can happen, but it should be the exception to the
rule. See I told you I wasn't going to come from
the direction you thought I was going to.
I want to cheerlead the Holy things of God.
I don't want religious tradition even if
it's full gospel religious tradition.
Because it gets in the way and we'll see that here in a bit.
Of all the overwhelming miracles and healings that Jesus
Paul and Peter etc. did, there isn't one instance mentioned
in Scripture where someone fell under the power when they were healed or a miracle
came to them. Now that should make us go,
hmm, that's interesting.
Now I'm not saying it didn't happen. All I'm saying is
it's not in the Word.
So apparently, because Jesus did
some pretty good stuff. Paul and Peter did
some pretty good stuff. Huge
miracles. Apparently, falling
down is not needed to get an answer.
Or everybody Jesus was laying his hands on should have been going down.
So if I'm crushing your
holy cow,
don't tune me out right now.
Stay objective.
Stay objective. I'm just pointing out the obvious.
The obvious is right there.
Where were all these people who went down under the power when Jesus prayed
for them and ministered to them? I mean even the lady
with the issue of blood who bent down touched the
hem of his garment. In today's
vernacular we would think, wow, probably the power hit her and she flew
over backwards laying around shaking like that.
There's no indication of that in Scripture. You know what she did?
She stood up.
Because Jesus turned around and said, who touched me? She knew Good and Well was her.
She was standing there going, oh man I'm in trouble.
She didn't go down under the power. There's no indication of it.
So I'm just pointing out the obvious.
Do we need to fall down under the power to receive?
Apparently not. You say, why would you say that?
Because Scripture doesn't say we have to have that.
There's no indication of it in Scripture.
And if we need to fall down to go under the power,
there's going to be problems if you're in hospital bed.
We're going to have to get you up and then lay hands on you so you can fall down.
There's going to be problems if you're in a wheelchair.
I mean that's, put it into, I mean get some common sense going here.
If it has to be
for people to receive,
then a lot of people are in trouble.
There was a lady that we prayed for. In fact, it was my
sister-in-law. When we started the church in Colorado,
she had what we understand now, a hormonal
imbalance, which caused her to miscarry a lot of children.
And she was pregnant with their youngest son
and they came down to, we were in Colorado, so they came down to Colorado
and were with us on a Sunday morning service. They hadn't said anything to us.
And the Lord pointed out
to me that there was a problem with her pregnancy.
And she hadn't even said anything
to her husband, my brother.
So I called him out. I said, am I hearing this right? Or what's going on? And she started crying.
She said, she was six months along and she said, the baby
has turned. His head is down. I'm going to miscarry this one too.
And I said, well, we don't have to.
Let's pray. So we prayed.
There was nothing in the physical whatsoever
to show that God did anything. She didn't fall
down. She didn't shake. She didn't quake.
She didn't do nothing. And the next morning
she got up, all smiles. She said, I feel the
head right up here. It turned back up. I'm good.
She carried that baby full term. So she received
without falling down.
Mary's brother, who was in a bad car accident
and had his back all messed up. He was in a prayer line.
I didn't even know he had a bad back messed up. He was in prayer line. I was going down the prayer line.
I laid hands on him because the prayer line was for healing.
I laid hands on him and prayed for healing and
people around were going like, you could just hear it popping
and cracking and snapping. And he looked at me with big eyes
and he said, something's happening.
He was told by the doctor
he would never lift over 20 pounds of the rest of his life.
He was back with so messed up. Totally whole.
He didn't go down under the power.
So I'm not, you know, some of you are going, oh, pastor, you're
against it. I am not against it. I'm trying to bring
balance and clarity.
Because we live in a society that likes drama.
Number three, even when it's real and of God,
there are very few times it happened in Scripture.
So again, I say, so why is it so common today?
Here's my conclusion. So now I'm going to start
my conclusion by making a big statement and I'm not done with my
message yet. We're going to talk about some things. But here's my conclusion on everything we've talked about.
Most of what we see in the church
today isn't real. It's not of God. It's a flesh manifestation.
I'm going to prove that to you. Very common sense way.
It becomes a tradition that I think actually gets
in, not the way, the way.
My auto spell was trying to help me there.
Gets in the way more times than it does any good.
I want to talk about that some. And I will just
say this. If we didn't have catchers,
there'd be a lot less people going down. I'm not
saying nobody would go down because I've seen them go down without catchers.
But there'd be a lot less.
We had a lady during praise and worship a few weeks back crumple in a pile right there. There was nobody to catch
person. Just went down.
See, now that to me is like, yeah, that's probably God.
The thing of...
I'm not sure I buy into all those.
If it's
of God and it's real, I'm 100% for it.
And I've seen it many, many, many times it's real.
I love new believers
or even unbelievers who get in the prayer line and get prayed for.
And boom, they go down and they're laying there going,
what is happening to me?
Or they get back up and go,
what was that? Never seen it, never heard of it, never
experienced it, all of a sudden all I knew is I couldn't stand anymore and I'm on the floor.
I love that.
See, that to me says, yeah, that's God.
Or the person who's alone. You're not even in their vicinity.
And boom. I tell the ushers from time to time and I
presume Pastor Igor is telling the same thing.
You got to pay attention to everybody in the line. You can't just pay attention to the one in front
of you who's going to go down because you're standing like this.
Because there might be person three, four over who's going like this.
Go over and help them because they're about
to go down. Yeah, but nobody's around them, Pastor.
That's the scriptural way.
Actually, that's the scriptural way.
There's no evidence of
that and the person goes down in scripture.
There's not one example. You don't have to say, man, I know you're thinking.
So, here's the
$50 million question. Well, if it's not real
and I should have put sometimes in there, if it's not real sometimes, because it is real.
It's just sometimes not. Why do people do it?
Why did they go down? Here's my conclusion.
I think most of the time it happens because people feel the power.
They can honestly sense the anointing and we've been conditioned
to think they need to fall down when they feel the power or the presence
of the anointing. Oh, I feel something.
I need to go down. You actually don't.
You can actually stand there and
receive without going down.
But because it's my mind become a charismatic, Pentecostal, religious tradition,
it's one of our
forms of religion. You know, we say, ah, we want nothing
to do with religion. Well, then we better take a good look at this one.
Because what's going on
doesn't show up very often in Scripture. Can't find it
once in the New Testament where someone laid hands on someone and they went down.
But it's happening a lot with us.
What is that? Well, somehow
I think we've been convinced this is a necessary good thing.
And we better join in. Like the lady you said, I came to your
church, got prayed for everybody else fell down, so I might as well do. I'll just go with it.
And they're not, you know, pure innocence.
It's fine. But see, that's how traditions get started.
I came to your church and I saw everybody was carrying their Bible like this.
So after about two, three weeks, I came and started carrying my Bible
like this. Why?
Well, everybody else is doing it. It must be the thing to do. That's tradition.
That's religion.
If I was, you know,
against that kind of stuff all my life in a Bible school,
everybody's trying to be holy there. So going to classes
and stuff, a lot of people would carry their Bibles like that. And I just refused to do it.
I just carried it like this.
You wouldn't believe the looks I got.
You can't carry your Bible right. Well, where in the Bible does it say how we're supposed to carry it?
See, you've got a tradition going on.
This is a religious thing.
Bless God.
Notice when ministers talk, praise his holy name.
Do you talk like that to your wife in the morning?
Honey, I'd like some toast today.
It's religion. It's tradition.
They're not God.
I think that's what's happened.
Do I believe it's real and can be of God? Absolutely.
Yes. And I'll give you some reasons why.
I know it's real because Scripture says it's real.
I know it can happen because Scripture says it can happen.
And I know it can happen in church because I've seen an experience that happened in church.
I've seen it happen to others. I've had it happen to me.
So let me give you some examples.
One of the most profound examples was back in the modular.
Because I've questioned this all my life. Why do we do this?
What is this for?
So I'm always kind of on the edge looking in going, if it's God, man, I'm 100% there.
If it's not, I want nothing to do with this.
And we were in the modular in one of the open heaven meetings.
I was at the front, of course, the modular was small. So the back door
was probably about where Kevin's sitting. The doors come in the sanctuary.
It was before service, so I'm standing up front and I'm doing some stuff.
I looked up, this lady walks in. It's like she
hipped. You know how they put cellophane on doors
and you walk into it? That's what it was like. She walked in.
If you've been in the modular, it's not carpeted there. It's a tile.
It's hard. She walked in. It's like she hit that. Boom!
Straight over backwards, bounced
when she hit the floor. Bam!
First thought went through my mind. Oh, I hope that's God.
If it's not,
that could be a lawsuit. She just claimed she slipped
on the floor or something. She laid there. People were walking in,
walking around her. Sometime during prison worship, she got up. So afterwards I talked to her.
I said, what happened? It was God. I said, you feel okay?
No pain, no headache, no nothing.
I said, do you have any idea how you hit? She says, no. I just was
standing. The next thing I knew, I was laying on the floor.
Do I believe it can happen? Absolutely.
I had it happen to me that way
one time. Now, here's
my thinking. It's mentioned very little
in Scripture, but it does happen.
I've had it happen to me twice that I know it was God.
Now, I'm 69 years old
as of yesterday. Twice. Thank you.
Twice in that period of time.
Now, I will say this. There have been a few times I gave
a respectful, I'll fall over for you.
And we're going to talk about this a little later. If there was people
behind me and someone was praying for me,
now all of you have seen this. If you've been around and they're pushing on you.
And it's like, I got to back
up? Well, there's people behind me.
I don't want to back over them. So, it's like, well, if you're that insistant, I'll just
give you what you're after. You want me to fall down.
So, I'll fall down.
I did a few of those. I don't do those anymore.
It's just, I'm not going to play the game.
If it's God, it's real. So, let me give you a couple of
examples in my life where it was real.
And these are the two times I know of it was God.
It was 2008 Father's Day in the modular. This was
the Sunday that the visitation, God
showed up and for years following we had
huge move of the Spirit. This was the Sunday. We were talking about
revival. I was talking about revival in the message and trying to
put people up so we'd be hungry for it. And I said,
anybody who wants to agree with me in prayer, that
God moves, come to the front.
We're going to do a prayer line. Anybody remember being there
that Sunday? One, two, three,
four, there's a few of you. Okay? Some of you were there
but can't remember it. Heidi
Heidi, who helps lead praise,
her sister was there, Heather. And
she wanted to be part of this and agree in prayer. She was the first one up to the front.
There was maybe ten of us total. She was the
first one. So I said, Heather agree with me and I laid
hands on her and it felt like I was
picked up and thrown over backwards.
Now remember the modular,
the wall was closer than the front of the stage
the chairs would have been about like here. So you don't go over
backwards. You're going to hit your head. And I
smacked the wall and I went down and the next thing I knew
it's like I laid hands on her and the next thing I remember
was that feeling and Heather's laying on top of me.
So we both went down together.
And the first thought that went through my mind is,
wow, this is awkward.
So she rolled off. I got back up and went
down the prayer line. That moment released
in the spirit realm everything that followed.
And there was no catchers. That was
purely God. And the second
time it was either the open heavens of 09 or 010. You might remember this Jim
what year it was. But there was a prayer line for something
I don't even remember what it was for. It wasn't for healing. It was for
something else. And I believe you laid hands
on us. Mary and I were standing together. And I went down one way
and she went down the other. And I was by the wall because remember there's not much
room here. So I was by the wall laying this way and she went down that way
her feet were kind of like here. And I knew it was God.
So I just stayed there. And all of a sudden
my left arm... Anybody remember
that? There's a few of you. My left arm started
to go weird on me. I'm laying there just going
to tell him this is God. I know this is God. And all of a sudden wham!
My left arm went over. What happened?
Wham! It came back. And up
and down. And I wasn't doing it.
But I knew this was God. So I closed
my eyes. I thought, God what are you doing?
Fill me in on this. This is odd.
And he gave me a little vision.
I'm laying there on the floor right immediately up for me
were two angels. An older one and like one who was younger or apprentice.
And they had these long things.
I could feel them. They were sticking them into my
brain. And they were working things around. The older one was talking
to the younger one. I didn't hear what they were saying but I could tell he was talking
and instructing. This is what you do and this is how you do it.
While I would feel that thing in my brain
move around, my arm would whip.
And come back. And it was just the oddest
thing. That went on for, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes?
Yeah. That went on. And I thought, well I'm staying here.
Something's going on. I have no idea. I'm in surgery.
So I'm just going to lay here. I'm going with it.
Fully conscious, understood it was going on. I just knew they were there.
And when they were done, I felt a pull out of my head.
And I heard the older one say, now he will not
die. He will live. And I credit it
real short version. When I was 8 months old
we were in Illinois in my uncle's car.
98 olds. It was a big old car, thank God. Came to a
4-way stop. Police officer was to the right of us. I was told all this later.
I'm 8 months old. So police officer over here, drunk driver
came over the hill and the police officer said he never slowed down. He plowed into the back
of the car. I was sitting on my dad's lap on the front seat
on the passenger side. My uncle was driving.
The dash on these old
oldsmobiles, they were made out of metal
man. They were steel. And the grill for the speaker
for the radio was a piece of steel with holes drilled in it.
My head went into that grill
and dad flew forward so hard crushing me against
the dash that he broke his pelvis.
Now I would guess I probably
had a traumatic brain injury.
Something could have gone wrong there.
Smacking an 8 month old, I mean it's not even fully closed yet at that age.
That hard. So I'm guessing
whatever happened back there, aneurysm, there was something
that was waiting to take me out
and when I was on the floor
God fixed it.
Sent his angels and said, yeah, he's getting out of there
that quick. Fix him up. And they fixed me.
So do I believe it can happen?
Yeah, absolutely. I've
experienced it. But I also believe
things happen that are not necessarily God. So let's
answer a question. What's wrong with people going down and it isn't God?
If they're going down innocently, it's not
a big deal. If there's a willful thing going on, which we'll talk about
here in a bit, excuse me, if there's a willful thing going on, then that becomes a
problem. You say why? Because it becomes a tradition
or a religion. Thus you are nullifying
and making void and of no effect the authority of the word of God
through your traditions.
If we're going down and it's not God
but it's a tradition, it's what we do, it
actually robs God's word
of its power. It gets in the way.
So I want to look at the tradition part just a little bit here.
Because we pray for people here. We have prayer lines probably more Sundays than
not. We pray for people. Not because it's
a tradition or a nice thing to do. We actually
believe prayer can change things.
And we pray for people because we believe it can change things. If we
get in agreement and we pray with each other. So we do this.
But tradition can get involved. The first time I saw
tradition getting involved with a prayer line, this again was back
in Colorado. I'm not sure why you ended up
on the catching end of this. We didn't have enough
catchers. I don't remember what the deal was. But I'm going down the prayer line.
I come to this lady. I barely touch her. Boom! She goes
down. And the Holy Spirit said to me, get her back up. That was
not me. That was demonic. She's got a demon and it's trying to get away from the anointing.
So I said, get her back up. Well, Mary was there
and got her back up. I said, I want to pray for you and you're not going down.
She tried every way to go down. I remember Mary standing there bracing
herself. Trying to keep her up. I said, don't let her fall down.
She's got to stay up. This is not a God thing.
And well, eventually we got the thing out and
God dealt with. But she was trying her best to get up. I mean, I'm going down.
No, you're not. So what she was feeling
actually was the demonic, not God.
That messed with my theology.
Every so often God will throw one in on you and go, there, deal with that one.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
I had to really start studying this
whole thing at that point and finding out what is going on. What is this
all about? There are times
people should stay standing.
Have any of you catchers? You've seen me do this.
I'll say keep them up. Don't let them go down. Hold them up.
They're like this.
Hold them up. They're not supposed to go down. Keep them up.
What's the reason for that? There's something spiritual going on
and it's not the power of God trying to lay them over. It's something else.
Now had I not learned that, I'd have just went along
with tradition. Well, she went down, leave her alone. Let's move on. God's working on her.
Wouldn't God at all? The demon wanted
her out of the prayer because it knew
if I hang around here too long, I'm toast.
So it can actually get in the way
of what's going on. So that question of
what happens if it's not God and somebody goes down.
Well, but it's innocent. We're all growing. We're all trying to figure this out.
We're all moving forward in God. His grace covers
stuff like that. If it's willful,
and by willful I mean it's a choice
to where this isn't God, but we're going to make it happen anyway,
that's a former rebellion.
And that happens more from my perspective
with ministers than it does
the people being prayed for. And I'll explain that in a bit. We'll get to it.
But if it's not God, it's fake.
It's not real. And if it's not real,
we're being hypocrites. We're just playing a role. We're just, oh, that's what I
thought to do. So I'm going to go over. We're playing, we're wearing a mask. We're playing a role.
Would it be okay
if, well, I know this isn't God, but I'm going to act like I'm going to give somebody a word of
knowledge? Well, I know this isn't God, but I'm going to give
a message in tongues and see if they're dumb enough to interpret it.
I mean, would that be okay? No.
Well, I don't really believe in healing, but I'm going to tell them God
wants them healed and this, that, and the other. That would be, see, we're playing a
game to fake
a vision. Well, I never had a vision, but I'm going to fake I had one
and it'll make me look spiritual. No, it's not okay.
Why? Because people eventually get hurt. Somehow the truth
will always find its way out. And if someone's
falling down and it's not a genuine thing,
according to Scripture, why would that be okay? Now, if it's innocent,
wouldn't be concerned about it. We're all growing. If it's willful,
it becomes a problem because it creates a tradition, a religious
tradition. And like we already found out,
it can stop the moving of the actual power of the Word of God.
So what's wrong if it's not God?
So here we're going to go a little deeper in this one.
It caters to the flesh.
There's nothing in Scripture to say that
God is doing greater things
if a person falls down. I mean, I haven't seen it.
If you can help me see it, I'm teachable. Show it to me.
In fact, there's not one example
in Scripture of someone falling down when they were being prayed for.
And like I said, maybe I've missed them, so please help me. It always happened
when the glory or the presence of God showed up or an angel or Jesus
manifested in the physical, which would be a glorious thing too.
So here's the question. So then why is it such a big deal in our
circles in this time?
I think it's because we have some preconceived notions. It's become a tradition.
It's become a ritual because we have some preconceived notions that are connected
to the tradition. And the notions,
the preconceived notions are not scriptural. But there's some
reasons we want it to happen. And we want it to
happen for people being prayed for. And if we're the person praying,
we want it to happen. So what could some of the
preconceived notions be? I'll give you some thoughts, think about.
The person must have really been touched
by God. Look how they went down.
Well, then the people Jesus prayed for, none of them were touched
by God. Not really.
See, when you take those preconceived ideas
and lay them against Scripture, all of a sudden
it's like, wait a second, that don't fit.
Paul said, I don't come to you with wise
and persuasive words. I come to you with
the demonstration of the power of God and the Holy Spirit.
How many people went down under Paul's ministry?
Scripture doesn't say there was one. No, I'm sure there was.
But Scripture don't point it out.
So, it does not necessarily mean
God's doing a greater thing because someone fell down.
Doesn't necessarily mean that.
I've heard this.
Heard this in my first pastorate. Wow, they must be
spiritual. I mean, they must be really in tune with God for him to come on
them that strong that they fall down. That is nothing
to do with it. I've seen people who
are close to spitting in God's face go down.
They know nothing about God, and he just showed himself strong and went
down. They went.
But a preconceived notion can be, oh, they must be so spiritual
because the power of God comes on them so strong. We don't even know it's the power of God.
They might be playing a game to impress you.
I don't know. Or
here's the one from my side of the fence. You're the congregation minister in this side of the
fence. We think it shows the power is really
flowing through the minister when he prays for people and they go down.
It makes the minister seem so much more
powerful and spiritual in our circles.
The prophecy, face
charismatic, penny-costal, spirit-filled circles.
It's like, wow, did you see him? He laid hands on them.
Man, the power of God must be strong on him.
So that should explain
to you why it's such a temptation for a minister
to try to make people
go down because if they do it will make me
look good to you. You'll all be impressed
with me. That is a real
temptation on our side of the fence.
That's why if nothing's happening
in certain prayer lines, if you'll pay attention, you'll see it. Certain ministers
will start pushing. Why are they doing that? You actually
have to take a step back or two to stay standing because they're pushing.
Why? There ain't nothing happening. People will think
I'm lame. Nobody's going down.
We don't walk by sight. We walk by faith. Nobody could
go down. Every one of them received some miraculous, wonderful healing.
It not dependent on going down. I had one lady, again
my first pastor, we had a lady evangelist come in who the church wanted
to come in. She's so wonderful. She's so great. And God so moves.
So she had a prayer line and I was walking behind the people.
She was on this side prayer line. I was on this side as she went down the prayer line.
All of a sudden right by the aisle she decided to go
after me. She's going to pray for me. So she did.
You know the head thing some ministers
do? Get their hand on your head.
Does that make a prayer more powerful?
No, it knocks you off balance so you go down.
I'm just calling it what it is.
She hit me. My head went back.
I took two, three steps back and I looked at her
and she looked at me like, you could almost see
the wheels turning. Why didn't you go down? So then she hit me in my
chest. In Jesus name, bam!
I thought I ain't feeling the power of God, but you're
pretty pushy. And I just, she kept pushing
me down the aisle. We went down the aisle always. Finally she got the
message. I'm not going over. Why would
she want that to happen so desperately?
If I'd have went down it would have made her look good.
This didn't turn out well.
The temptation on our side
that the demonic dangles the carrot in front of us
it will make me look
good. So we're going to find a way
to help these people to go down
whether they know it or not. Big statement
coming. You ready? Do you know what that is?
Nope. Back up.
Missed this one. I'll just say it to you. Do you know what that is
when that happens? That is a display of
flesh, insecurity sometimes
and or pride.
If I as a minister have to
make something happen that's not happening
I'm wrong. I'm wrong.
So I watch in this church I watch very closely
for pushing. The neck rearranging
You know if somebody does actually
have neck problems
are you trying to heal them or kill them? What are you doing?
They actually have a neck problem. I watch that
real close. I want God to move
unrestrictedly but I don't want the fake. I want the real.
And it can be real
but it also can go awry. So what do I look for?
Let's wrap it up. I look for and I word it
this way let me explain it. I want to see the person go straight down
or the inability to stand like it says in Scripture.
That doesn't mean every time someone
goes this way it's not God.
But it just when I lay my hands on somebody
and there's been a few times this has happened because sometimes
people have never felt the tangible presence of God
they've never had it happen. Their church doesn't
happen there and they end up in a prayer line.
And I lay my hands on him sometimes the Holy Spirit will say tell him to stand
and I know what he means. So I'll tell him I want you to do
everything you can to stand because the tangible presence
of God is going to come on you now and I want you to try to stay standing.
That's to show them
not me. That's to show
them the tangible presence power of God coming on them.
And they'll come on, stay standing
and they go down. They will
never be the same again. Not because of me.
They just experienced something that God wanted them to experience
that will change their lives forever.
The traditional
you know, okay, I got
catcher. Somebody's praying for me. I'm feeling the power of God. I'm just going to go down.
And it's so nice. It happens so easily and so smooth and there's
it just looks good. I pay very little attention to those.
From this side of the fence,
I just don't pay very little. That doesn't mean God did anything to me.
Because anybody can do that.
So I just don't pay much attention to those.
I'm looking for the inability to stand. And secondly
I'm looking for a dramatic change
in the person when they get back up.
Let's stop and think about it. If the power of God comes on
a person so strong that it overwhelms
their physical body and they go down, that's the Scripture
away. We just showed you from Scripture. They can't stand.
If that happens to someone
when they get up, something has had
to change in them. I mean there needs
to be some obvious. Wow, did that change
them? Look at the examples in Scripture.
Moses went down. When he got up, okay God, I'll obey
you. Something changed. Disobedience to
obedience. Joshua had the same thing happen.
When he got up, okay God, I'll go to war for you. I might die, but that's okay.
I'm going to go to war for you. Paul,
there's a good one. Blown off his horse.
That fast he changed
from killing Christians to being one. See it
if you track it through Scripture where people have had things to happen like
Peter. Peter is a Jew.
Acts 10. God is about to convince him this
message of the gospel is not just for Jewish people, it's for Gentiles
too. Throws him to the ground in a trance
when Peter came up. His whole theology had changed.
Everything.
That's what I look for. If you went down
when you come up over a period of next
week, two, three weeks, there should be some major change that takes place in you.
Again,
I don't have a lot of use for
we go down 50 times and we come up
and nothing's changing in our life. I just don't have use for that.
I don't find it in Scripture. That's why. I just don't find it in Scripture.
If the power of God hit you that hard, something needs to be changing.
So, principle, you've heard me say this many times.
How can we find
in a very common sense way, what's God?
Remember the two ditches principle?
This applies to anything when it comes to the kingdom of God.
Plies to anything. Try to find the
furthest extreme on this side you can think of. Try to find
the furthest extreme on this side you can think of.
And come to what looks like the middle between
those two. And you're probably at least on the road.
Might not be in the middle of the road, but you're at least on the road.
For instance, the Corinthians. They were
in an extreme way over there. They were talking in tongues
all the time, anytime, every time they walk into the church and they talk in tongues
the message, the pastor would deliver messages in tongues.
The whole message would be in tongues.
And it's just like, well I don't know how much further that way you can get
than that. The other is,
it's not of God at all. Tongues is not of God at all. Shouldn't happen, period.
Well come this way
and come this way. Tongues is of God,
but that ain't. So we need to learn
how to function in this. It'll get you on the road.
Let me apply it to this. Every time we go
to word of life, everybody that gets prayed for goes down.
Well how much further that way can you get than that?
Or we've never seen anybody ever
go down in my lifetime. Well it's about as far as you can get that way.
Come this way. People are supposed to
experience the power of God. Bring that back
to what scripture says. It's not as
important as we sometimes make it.
Well they got to go down to receive. No they don't. That's not
scriptural. Bring that back. Well does God
ever do it? Well yeah, he does. He does.
So we got to try to find a balance in the whole thing
to where we're not denying it all or just goofy.
Because neither one is right.
It's a very holy thing
between God and the person. If you look at the scriptural
themes, remember the glory or the presence of God showed up,
Jesus showed up or an angel showed up.
I'm going to speak prophetically right now because I believe that the Holy Spirit wants it
proclaimed. There will be people who will go down
fall down when they're being prayed for, go down into the power of God
in our open heaven meetings. And it's because an
angel stepped in
and touched them and is doing something with them. That's scriptural.
Now people will freak out. Angel coming to
you're getting weird. No actually that's scripture.
That's accurate.
So it will happen. But it's
a holy experience between the person and God.
It has nothing to do with the prayer.
Can't find that in scripture. Where they're so full of the power of God that
every time they pray for somebody, somebody's going down. That is not scriptural.
And it has nothing to do with the person being
good enough or so spiritual or so holy that God just
here let me reward you for your wonderfulness.
Not in scripture.
But God does meet his people that way.
It can happen. It's a holy thing.
So to answer the questions. I attended your church and wanted
to get prayed for when I got in the prayer line. People were falling down so I did too.
That's okay. You didn't know any better. Is that something that is supposed to happen
when people get prayed for at the church? Maybe. Sometimes.
Occasionally. Do I need
to fall down every time? Please don't.
Please don't. There is no precedent in
scripture to say that as God. Why do people fall
down when they get prayed for? Some it's genuine. The power of God is coming
on them. My opinion, most it's a tradition. It's something that we
do. We're looking around. Other people are going down.
What if I'm the only one standing? People in the crowd going to look at me like what's wrong
with them? What kind of sin did they have in their life? They didn't go down. Everybody else went down.
There they stand. So I better go down too.
Yeah. Let's not do that.
They can get prayed. They can go down because it was God.
And then they can go down because it wasn't God. I can't find in the Bible
where it says people need to fall down when they're prayed for. Is it in the Bible? No,
it's not. It's not in the Bible where
someone prayed for someone and they went down. It is in the Bible that people
go down under the power. But it's not in the
Bible that someone laid hands on them and they went down. That's not scriptural.
Does it happen? I think occasionally it should. I've seen it happen.
When I laid hands on Heather, I had no intention of going down.
Next thing I know, I'm smacking my head on the wall and she's laying on top of me
and I was like, okay, we didn't plan this one well, did we?
But that was God. So it can happen.
But again, we're looking for balance. If it's of God, I'm for it. I'm
100% for it. But it's not a requirement to receive.
It's not a sign that God's really moving. It's not an indicator that the minister is super
anointed. And going down is not a guarantee of the
promise being fulfilled in us. Faith is the guarantee of the
promise. However, I have seen God do some
astounding things in people, myself included, when they were
on the floor under the power of God. So we can't just
disregard it. That's a ditch. It needs to be real. That's the middle
of the road. It needs to be treated with respect as a holy thing.
So leading into open heavens, this is just
one thing and a bunch of questions came in, so I thought, well, I better answer this.
The more we respect and reverence
and have awe for the supernatural things
God does, the more intensely He will do
them. We are living in a society where things
are very much commonplace. Everything becomes very much
commonplace. I don't want anything
that happens when we are meeting with God, seeking
His face, looking for answers, looking to minister to Him. I don't want
anything to be regarded as commonplace.
Everything is holy. And if
we will reverence it and respect it, God
will honor that. Father,
we just want your best.
Jesus bought and paid for your best.
We want what Jesus bought and
paid for. We want your best.
We want more and more and more people healed. We want more and more
miracles. We want more and more people saved. We want everybody
who saved, baptized in the Holy Spirit, with the ability to speak
in their own spiritual prayer language. We want to see
visions and have dreams. The last day's language,
one of the languages according to Acts 2, we want
you to move among us.
We just want it to be real. And as we're moving
forward, God, we're all going to examine our hearts, myself included.
We reverence what you do
among us. We honor it.
It is not something that we take lightly.
It is not common to us. And it will never be allowed to become common
to us. So when something supernatural happens, we're never going to get to
the point of going home. We expect it,
but that doesn't mean we don't stand back and say, look what God just
did. Look what God just did.
And we reverence you and give you all the
glory and the praise and the honor for anything
and everything you do. And Lord,
if there's things going on that are getting in the way, traditions, rituals,
show them to us so that we knock it off
and we get back to what the real is that you're offering to us
in Jesus' name.
In Jesus' name. Lord, protect everyone.
Watch over us. Keep us.
And help us to begin making
a focus to be ready for that first
full week in January when our whole focus
is on God. This is about you. Jesus,
this is about you. And we will come and we will
worship and we will sing and we will praise and we will hear the word
and we will see wonderful things happen
because it's all about you.
Help us to begin changing that
direction even now in Jesus' name.
Posturing our heart that way. Getting ready.
Preparing the soil for great, great, great things to
happen. If it's only in one person, great, great
things happen. It will have been worth all of it.
But I believe it's going to be way more than one in Jesus' name.
We ask it and we pray it and we thank you for it.