J USTIN ’ S A NGELIC V ISITATION

Many of our most memorable spiritual encounters have taken place in our home. While living in the south Kansas City area, I was involved in a critical prayer vigil in Atlanta, Georgia.

Michal Ann was busy taking care of the house and the min-istry, while also watching the kids in our little house on Herrick Street. Our oldest son, Justin, was only about seven years old, but he had an incredible experience in the Lord. He was sleep-ing on the top bunk of his bed when he opened his physical eyes and saw some “clouds” coming down into his room. When Justin looked up into the clouds, he saw a bright throne with four winged creatures around it.

Then Justin saw a ladder come out of the clouds and down into his room. He watched as angels came down the ladder, one

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at a time, carrying what looked to be fire in their hands. The last angel placed a piece of stationery on Justin’s dresser and then went back up the ladder, which, in turn, ascended back into the clouds. Once the clouds disappeared, Justin said that he could no longer see the winged creatures or the throne.

Only the stationery remained behind, in the exact position where the angel had placed it.

Justin got up, came into our room and began to tell his mother what he saw. He even drew a picture of the four crea-tures and told her that each one had four faces: one like an eagle; one like a lion; one like an ox; and one like a man—just like the angelic beings described in the Book of Revelation and the Book of Ezekiel! Justin also said that fish scales appeared to be covering them. Michal Ann sat down with him and read key passages from the Book of Revelation. When Justin heard the words “four living creatures full of eyes” (from Revelation 4:6), he said, “Oh, well, that’s it.”

Then Justin described the piece of stationery that the angel had left behind. Two angels sat on each corner of the stationery, and, in beautiful handwriting, was written the short message,

“Pray for your Dad.” When Michal Ann related this story to me, I was amazed, not only because my son had experienced a dramatic supernatural encounter with angels, but also because only the Lord knew how urgently I needed my son’s prayers during that time. God leans His ear when children pray.

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Time and again, Michal Ann and I have seen angelic min-istry released in response to prayers from God’s people. For example, our Czech friend, Pastor Evald Rucky, apparently was taken up into Heaven while his body lay in a three-day coma caused by a severe heart attack. Evald has told me many amaz-ing stories of what he saw up there, but one particular revela-tion illustrates how God answers prayer through angelic

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intervention and visitation. Evald told me that while sus-pended between Heaven and earth, he saw dark clouds over central and eastern Europe; but these clouds were being pene-trated by white lights going up and down from the heavens. He asked, “What are these white lights?” The Holy Spirit explained to him, “These are My angels being released in answer to the prayers of the saints.” Evald realized that these messengers were breaking up the black clouds, which were ter-ritorial spirits amassed over central and eastern Europe.²

Pastor Evald also saw a white bridge come up out of Ethiopia (in northern Africa) and arch right through the clouds to come back down in Israel. Then he watched as thou-sands of black men and women walked over this white bridge from Ethiopia and stepped onto the soil of Israel. Perplexed by what he saw, Evald asked, “What is this?” The Holy Spirit said,

“These are My ancient people—the Jews—returning to their homeland.” Evald persisted, “How does this occur?” A response came, “Oh, this too happens in response to the prayers of the saints.”

Shortly after Evald was miraculously returned to his body and totally healed, he and the rest of the world received news about “Operation Solomon.” News organizations around the globe flashed the story of a massive airlift conducted by the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) in cooperation with the Jewish Agency, the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and other governmental bodies, including the Ethiopian government. Aircraft airlifted 14,400 Ethiopian Jews from the deserts of North Africa to Israel within a 48-hour period. The airlift made history as these beleaguered Jews were returned to their ancestral homeland of Israel. The arrival of these Jewish refugees brought tears to many thousands of Israelis who took part in re-unifying Ethiopian Jews with 20,000 family members already residing in Israel.

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Operation Solomon made 40 separate flights to bring most of Ethiopia’s Jews back to Israel. Now in the Jewish state, these Ethiopian Jews sought a new life that hopefully would be free of religious persecution. The airlift was the largest mass evacu-ation of “Diaspora Jews” ever mounted by the nevacu-ation of Israel in its then 43-year history, and some people found it reminis-cent of the biblical exodus. Evald’s hospital sickbed vision had been 100 percent accurate.

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In 1991, during a prayer retreat in Kansas, I had a visionary experience. As I prayed, at the 2 A.M. watch, I saw a picture of

“an ancient tool.” I asked the Holy Spirit, “What is this?” and the Spirit said, “These are the ancient tools.” When I asked what the ancient tools were, He told me, “The watch of the Lord; I will restore the ancient tools of the watch of the Lord.

It has been used, and it will be used again to change the expression of Christianity across the face of the earth.”

The term “watch of the Lord” wasn’t new to me; I had heard the phrase used in connection with the rich history of the Moravian Church, which was founded by Czech Evangelical Brethren in the 1700s while fleeing persecution for their faith.

They left Moravia and Bohemia—two states of what is now the Czech Republic—and fled to an area called Saxony, in what is today eastern Germany. Led by a man named Christian David, these religious refugees found solace under the favor and pro-tection of powerful nobleman Count von Zinzendorf, who was himself a devout Christian. The Moravians are especially remembered for maintaining a watch of unbroken prayer, peti-tion, and praise that lasted well beyond the 100-year mark.

Their prayers are credited by many for launching and fueling the great missionary movement that changed the world in the 18th century.

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In The Lost Art of Intercession, I offer a detailed description of our trip and prayer vigil at the original site of the Moravian settlement at Herrnhut. There, the Holy Spirit descended on our team of intercessors and imparted a wonderful, unforget-table anointing and burden for prayer.³That trip was marked by encounter after encounter with divine providence, provi-sion, and power. What was most remarkable about Herrnhut was receiving the prophetic sense that God was essentially birthing “a new Pentecost” by planting His holy fire in 120 cities around the world. Over 2,000 years ago, the Lord launched the Church in the fires of Pentecost by filling the 120 people with a Holy Spirit baptism. That small fire ignited the whole known world and is now sweeping across the nations of this earth. Then the Lord told us that He was setting the fire of prayer and His presence in at least 120 cities around the globe;

these were places where God was going to release a full demon-stration of “the house of prayer for all nations.”

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Richard, David, and I had another unusual experience in Minsk, Belarus, when we embarked on a midnight “prayer assignment” in the heart of the Commonwealth of Indepen-dent States’s capital. We, with a team of many others, partici-pated in Hear O Israel’s International Festival of Jewish Worship and Dance. With the successful outreach now over, their prayer assignment could convene. Due to nuclear fallout from the devastating Chernobyl disaster, great damage was occurring in Belarus. Many people (children especially) had serious illnesses in the stomach and lung area (known as “the Chernobyl disease”). The Lord put it on our hearts to inter-cede for widespread sickness and healing. Through a meeting with government officials, we found out about their fear that radiation fallout was going to contaminate a river running through the heart of the city.

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We felt the need to offer some very specific prayers at a downtown site in Minsk at a large monument that bore the great red star that symbolized the Communist party. Signs of Communism were still in place, and Belarus had elected a Communist president in May 1994. Through prophetic revela-tion, the Holy Spirit told us to go to the heart of the city, pray at this main Communist monument, and—just as Moses did in the Book of Exodus—symbolically throw branches into the river and then pray for the waters to be healed.

Many of the subways did not operate that late at night.

None of us knew how to get to the exact location, and it wasn’t quite proper for Americans to ask how to reach a Communist monument at midnight! But we also knew that we had to pray at that specific location. I stepped into the hotel elevator to meet my two intercessory partners in the lobby, and I was well aware that none of us knew how to find the place. Once we reached the general location, we wouldn’t be assured of how to get back either. It was late, and the situation didn’t look too good, but the Lord was in charge.

When my two friends stepped into the elevator, they were joined by a total stranger. When Richard and David walked out into the lobby to meet me, the Russian-looking stranger walked along with them. He even walked with us right into the subway station! At first, we didn’t think much of his pres-ence. Then the man boarded the subway with us, told us where to get off, and how to catch the next subway train con-nection. He rode along with us and helped us catch the right connecting train to reach our designated location. How did this man know where we were going? We had not spoken a word to anyone.

The stranger stepped off the subway with us and actually escorted us to the underground entrance of the towering government monument. Then he walked us out of the sub-way, pointed, and then said in English, “Now this is where

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you are to pray.” He quickly walked back down the steps as we said, “A-h-h-h, yes.” By the time I turned around to thank our guide for his help, the man was gone—nowhere to be seen. I am convinced that an angelic escort took us to our appointed place for our intercessory encounter. God must have wanted our prayers that night! Did we complete our assignment? Did we find branches to throw in the nearby river? Well, of course we did! What was the outcome? We will let time and history determine the fruits of the prayers we launched that night. Whatever the case, I have no doubt that we were guided by supernatural means so that we could carry out God’s desire for intercession.

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Many more excursions transpired over the years. By the grace of God, we keep adding treasures to our intercessory war chest as the years go by. This is all due to the faithfulness of God, who always delights to hear the prayers of His people!

Space does not permit me to fully tell of intercessory break-throughs to stop short a war raging in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herze-govina, all through a corporate prayer anointing released by acts of identificational repentance. Or we could also consider the opening of the 40/70 Prayer Window Convocation held in Hanover, Germany, as well as assisting Generals of Intercession leader Cindy Jacobs to declare open doors in the Russian cities of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Volgograd (formerly known as Stalingrad).

I will never forget the impact of a prayer assignment at the Swansea Bible College of Wales with the elderly Samuel How-ells, who is the son of the great intercessor Rees Howells. His simple and yet profound statement pierced me within: “The servant of God must be possessed by God!” I have come to know that all prayer is effective—whether at all-night worship watches; solitary prayer walks; on-site location prayer rallies;

intercession in Finland, Argentina, Guatemala, or Canada; The

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Call events with Lou Engle and Che Ahn; or our weekly Israel Prayer times with local believers. God always works through the prayers of His people!

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What does all of this have to do with you? Everything!

Michal Ann and I are ordinary people serving an extraordinary God—and so are you. We have experienced amazing God encounters because we made ourselves available to a gracious Lord. He wants His house to be a house of prayer, and you and I are to seek Him with all our heart. He longs to share times of quietness and solitude with us, and He wants to establish us as lights of His glory and pillars of His strength in times of storm. Do you want to join us and shape history before the throne of God? There is no better time to begin an adventure in prayer than right now, in Jesus’ name.

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Lord, I want to fill up the treasure chest of my life with tes-timonies of Your power, intervention, and great love. I agree with the Book of Daniel where it says, “The people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits” (Dan. 11:32).

As I yield my life to You, do great and mighty works in and through my life, in Jesus’ wonderful name, Amen.

E^NDNOTES

1. Jim W. Goll, The Lost Art of Intercession (Shippensburg, PA: Revival Press, 1997), adapted from material on pages 53-54.

2. Goll, The Lost Art of Intercession, adapted from page 94.

3. Goll, The Lost Art of Intercession, see particularly Chapters 1 and 4.

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For God