The Glory of Heaven

When I was in a communist prison in 1972 for smuggling Bibles into the Communist Bloc (2 tonnes every time I came), I was pastor, evangelist - but I had to learn all over again HOW to pray. For the first six months, it seemed as if there was NO answer.  In my utter desperation the Spirit reminded me of the Lord's Prayer. So I began to say, "Our Father", but I argued, "That's plural, I'm alone in here. I'm not in church. I have to say, 'my' Father!" Suddenly I knew, He's MINE! He's my FATHER! I'm HIS child! I'm locked in this stinking prison, but He's not only MINE, He's my FATHER! Then I came to the next part, 'Who is in Heaven...' - But I argued, "You're in Heavenly glory, with angel choirs, worship, power... I'm not in Heaven, I'm in a filthy cell, in a hell on earth! Oh God, You're up there in Heaven, don't You understand?!! I'm in a living hell!!!"

Then I remembered, God so loved me, He sent His Son, not only to live on earth, but to go into a prison like me. God allowed His own Son to be incarcerated, beaten, tortured - so much, He should have died under the beating, there and then in that prison cell, even before He reached the cross! God allowed it. Who am I if I am called to suffer?

And then I came to the next part, 'Hallowed be Thy Name'. What does that mean? I have never understood until my time in prison for Bible smuggling. But it was as if the Lord said to me, "This is where you have to worship." But HOW could I in the circumstances I was in? I tried to 'praise' God through clenched teeth. Can you imagine?!! I was in rebellion, there was no reality. HOW could I praise God in the depths of hell? Suddenly, as I began to say those words, 'Praise the Lord', it was if the roof of the prison opened. I could hear the angel choirs, I heard the music of Heaven, I sensed the glory of Heaven - something happened in that cell. The glory of God came down! It was as if I was transported into Heaven and the glory of God came on me. I leaped up off that stool and began to run around that cell, singing, shouting, "Then sings my soul, my Saviour God to Thee, HOW great Thou art!" The glory of God filled my soul. Never in a church or prayer meeting have I ever experienced the glory of God, the very presence and power of God - as I did in that hell on earth.

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God is my Father

'When you pray say, "Our Father"' (Luke 11:2)

Things were difficult in the prison in Czechoslovakia where I was imprisoned for Bible smuggling; in the first few months it seemed as if God did not answer any of my prayers. When I prayed for food, there was none, when I prayed that my wife would come, she was not allowed a visa to visit me - it seemed that every prayer that I prayed, God said no. I began to despair. We had to get up at 6.00 am every morning and sit for hours on a wooden stool embedded with nails. It was torture. In the first six months I wasn't allowed out of my cell - my food and my toilet were in the cell. I lost so much weight. However, I would try to pray in those early hours before the guards brought the mouldy black bread and foul tasting, drug laced drink which was our only breakfast.

One morning when I had been three months in that cell, I cried out in desperation that I could not pray anymore because, I said, "Oh God, every time I pray, You say no! When I want the food parcels my family send, or a visit from my wife, or for me to be found not guilty in the court and be set free, always the answer is no! I don't know how to pray anymore, everything I ask for, it's no!" I sat there, not knowing what to do. "Oh God, if You don't hear me, I'd rather die, because life has no purpose, no meaning if You don't answer me." While I was still saying, "Oh God, I cannot pray anymore", I remembered the words in the Bible (I had no Bible in the prison - it was forbidden) when the disciples had asked Jesus how to pray, and He said, "When you pray say..." - and I began hesitantly to say those words, 'Our Father' - but as I did so, I began to argue, I cannot say 'our', that's plural - I'm alone in here, no family, no friends, no believers, how can I speak in the plural? I have to say MY Father. Suddenly I knew the reality of those words, He is mine - He is my Father!

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Wrestling in Prayer

God has been revealing to me, the difference between receiving what most are seeking, which is power from God, and what is even more powerful, how we can receive power with God. In Genesis 32, we have the story of how Jacob wrestled with God all night. At the end, God turned to Jacob and said, "As a prince, you have power with God and with man, and have prevailed!"

If you want to be active rather than passive as a believer, then you need to have power not only from God, but also power with Him! You cannot have real power with men until you first learn to have power with God, hence this wrestling (in persistent prayer). That is why I have so many battles in my life - in the communist prison, cancer twice - so that these last twenty years have been the most effective in my whole life!

The greatest thing in your life is to learn how to pray - and that is one of the hardest things to do. I have been a Christian for over sixty years and I still ask, "Lord, teach me how to pray!"

Wrestling with God is a question of learning how to pray. Any one can 'pray', especially in a crisis. But it is prevailing prayer, learning to pray until we get the answer, which is the hardest lesson. It is a privilege when God places us in extreme circumstances so that we can learn how to wrestle with Him! My life seems to go from one crisis to the next, until I even say to God, "Isn't it time You made my life a little bit easier?" But He has a simple answer, "Without the crisis you will stop learning!" That is why, old as I am, however many years I have been evangelising, I am still saying, "Lord, teach me how to pray!" So thank God for the crisis in your life!

The important thing with prayer is, like Jacob, to prevail with God until He answers!

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Last Great Revival

We're living in the last days, the days of the return of Christ, the days when we are going to see revival fire bursting upon the Church, poured on the Church, until the Church is going to be living and vibrant and working and believing and moving into spiritual victory - all in the preparation of the glorious return of Jesus. Those days are going to culminate with the sound like a trumpet, and that sound is going to echo from every building, and that trumpet will herald the return of Christ and suddenly in a blaze of Glory sweeping across the sky from the East to the West, Christ is going to take control, bind Satan, cast Him into a prison for 1000 years ... I'm prophesying what the prophets have been prophesying for 2000 years. And I believe that this last great revival will begin amongst the Russian speaking peoples, sweep across Europe, and upon this revival, Christ will return, just as Hudson Taylor prophesied in 1889.

If you only knew what is about to happen, you would be so excited! God is exciting me because I see in the Word what He's about to do now. The greatest Glory, the greatest Power, the greatest ministry, the greatest miracles ... we're going to see miracles of healing we have never seen before in our lives. I'm excited - we're going to be saying exactly what Deuteronomy 4 says, 'Ask of the days that are past...' go back, ask history, go back to the Welsh Revival, to the days of Smith Wigglesworth, George and Stephen Jeffreys, go back to the beginning of time since the day God created man on the earth, ask every saint and say, "Has God ever done anything such as He's going to do in the Church?"

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Fire from Heaven

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is essential if we are to be effective in our Christian witness. When I was a child, I prayed 3 months without receiving the Spirit. But I knew that without the power, the fire, the anointing of God, I could never see men's lives converted. At Easter we used to have three Pentecostal Conventions in London. I determined to go and not leave until I had received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit! The preaching was so long in the morning, there was no time to pray for people to receive the Holy Spirit! As a 13-year old I went up to those great men of God on the platform and said, "I only came to receive the fire, pray for me!" They took me to a small room, laid their hands on me, but their minds were on their lunch! I did not receive the Holy Spirit.

I was searching for something which does not come from men, the real power of God. One of those pastors saw my heart, opened the Scripture to me, then when he prayed and laid hands on me, it was as if the roof came off the building, I saw the Glory of God and felt the fire! The fire of the Holy Ghost, the power of God and the Glory of God came into my life! Now I had to become an evangelist! I had to preach Christ, and see the Power! That baptism was only the beginning! - If you want to be effective in ministry, you MUST be filled with the Holy Spirit!

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Prayer and Revival

My father, (a great man of God, converted in 1905 during the Welsh Revival, a great Bible teacher), taught me when I preached as a boy of 13 and no one repented, that Jesus said, "When the Holy Spirit is come, He will convict the world of sin and righteousness and of judgment to come!" He said, "Son, you haven't received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit yet!" It was a lesson which changed my life - because what I needed was the fire and the power of the Holy Spirit to bring conviction, conversion and a changed life when I preach! I asked my father to lay hands on me. He did, but I didn't receive the Holy Spirit. As a result, I spent the next three months in an agony, 13 years old, crying out to God, fasting and praying that God would give me FIRE and POWER through the Holy Spirit. When finally, I received the Holy Spirit just days before my 14th birthday, it totally revolutionised my life. From that moment God took control, things began to happen, people began to repent. But in order to receive, I had to be emptied of my self; God had to cleanse me and make me new. I needed to learn to submit to God, to seek Him, to desire His Spirit more than anything else. I spent months reading His Word, praying the Scriptures, desiring the Spirit. I was determined to receive the same Baptism that the disciples received at Pentecost! It's important to realise that the disciples spent weeks in prayer before the Spirit fell like flames of fire; you must be earnest in prayer too.

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Prevailing Prayer

We must prevail in prayer until God answers. In Numbers 14 we see Moses' power with God. Probably one of the greatest dialogues ever recorded between man and God is this one commencing with verse 11, where God speaks very directly to Moses complaining of the lack of response and the disobedience of Israel. Their lack of faith prompts God to say, "How long will they not believe Me, despite all the signs which I have worked amongst them?" As a result, He threatens to destroy the whole nation. But in verse 13, in one of the most amazing scenes in Scripture, Moses dares to argue with God! He says, "If you do so, then the Egyptians will hear and tell the other nations, all of whom have heard and seen the miraculous deliverance and mighty signs which You have worked in their midst. They will not blame Israel for their lack of faith and disobedience, but will blame You, saying that You did not have the power to deliver them." Then Moses demonstrates the power which he has with God as intercessor saying, "Pardon the iniquity of this people!"

God answers, "I have pardoned, according to YOUR word," verse 20. Moses 'made it happen'! Do you see what the intercessor has done? Moses as the intercessor has challenged God so that instead of turning His back on His people because of their weakness, because of their sin, because of their failure to evangelise and their failure to win the world, God says, "Because of the intercessor I will renew My Covenant, I will renew My Power, I will renew My Glory. I will send the Power of My Spirit on them, backslidden as they are, fallible as they are - because you have stood before Me!"

Then God says in verse 21, in confirmation of the further power of the intercessor (especially when compared with Elijah who called down God's fire in 1 Kings 18), "All the earth shall be filled with the GLORY of the Lord!" This Glory is the FIRE which surrounds God, and it will fill ALL the earth.

God is calling on you to pray for your nation! 'If My people will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven...' God is talking to you and me, not to the sinner: God is wanting His people to repent! When we pray, God says, 'I will answer!' - That is the Covenant we have with Him. When Solomon based his prayer upon the Covenant, what happened? - 'When Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven... (2 Chronicles 7:1). God will heal and restore your nation because you prayed!

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