LayGuy

“Do not despise prophecies, but test everything: hold fast what is good” 1 Thess 5:20

I was brought up in a strict religious upbringing. The gifts of the Spirit were a thing of the past - a distant memory of things that don’t happen in this day and age.

Since then I’ve also been exposed to charismatic Christianity where every bizarre occurrence is a “sign” of the gifts of the Spirit and seen people totally deceived by almost occultic events.

Slap bang in the middle of all this was an event I experienced almost ten years ago. I was privileged to attend the Feast of Tabernacles in Israel in the Jubilee year since it’s rebirth. I was part of the International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem (ICEJ) conference held in God’s City in 1998.

I was travelling with the Director of South Pacific Island Ministries (SPIM) and his wife - dear friends of my parents going back decades. Every year, they bring along a group of delegates from one of the islands they minister to in the pacific region.

In 1998, I was travelling with a group of Tahitians who spoke only French and wore the most colourful costumes Jerusalem ever experienced. So much so, that they made national headlines. As an “adopted Tahitian”, I wore their national costume and was quizzed by many as to why I didn’t look like the rest of the group. I explained to them that I was just an Aussie travelling with the group.

The conference was held in Jerusalem’s main exhibition centre where you had your typical stalls in the foyer area with Christians and Jews trying to sell their spoils. It was here, during a break that something strange indeed happened.

I visited a stall and started chatting away with the owner who happened to be an Aussie Messianic Jew. Being Aussies, we clicked right away and she introduced me to her husband. Although he was a Messianic Jew also, he would have fit right in with the Hells Angels - such was his demeanour.

Almost right away, he asked me if I wanted to hear a message from the Lord. Thinking he was a little “charismatically” strange, I had no choice but to accept this invitation to hear from God from the Messianic bikie dude.

Before he went on his “Godly inspired spiel”, he asked me to look at his arm.

“Nice tatts”, I said as gawked at all his tattoos splattered all across his arms.

“No. Look at the hair on my arms”, he said pointing to hairs looking like someone threw a bunch of Viagra on his upright hairs all over his arms.

“So you have a lot of static electricity on you. Must be the carpet in this place”, I replied thinking to my self that that was a good line.

He walked over to someone standing near by and I saw his hairs fall down onto his arm. He walked over to me and they rose again. He repeated this one more time and declared it was I causing this.

Before I could say, “OK, maybe it’s me with the static then”, he told me that God had a word for me and if I was ready to hear it. OK by this stage, he had my attention and I wanted to hear what he had to say. And this is what he said:

“This is what the Lord says to you. I am going to use you as my tool first in your church and then in all the churches in Melbourne”.

And then he turned and walked away leaving me kind of shell shocked as to what all this meant. I think he knew I was from Melbourne in that his wife introduced me as a fellow Aussie. But still his words resonated within a deep part of me - something totally strange to experience.

Anyway, breakout finished and it was time to go back to the sessions. Next I went to a Bible Study session and took a seat in the back row and was reading my bible waiting for the session to begin when this lovely little old lady came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder.

“Can I pray for you?” she asked.

“Sure. Go for it”, I answered still a little bewildered by what the Messianic bikie dude had just said. And so she placed her hands on my head and started to pray - in tongues.

Something in my spirit started to feel really awkward as she got more aggressive in her prayers. So I asked God the following, “Lord if this is something from you, please let me understand. But if this is of the enemy, put a stop to this right away.”

All of a sudden, she took away her hands from my head as if she got some kind of electric shock and scurried away looking back at me totally shell shocked. As you can imagine, my weird day just got a little weirder as I tried to gel all this things together and determine what on earth was going on.

That night I was talking to my friends from SPIM - Vic and Elsie Sclatter and I told them as to what happened. In sobering Godly wisdom, they explained to me what might have happened.

If the bikie dude was true in what he said, then I was to experience more dramatic spiritual attacks as I was now a marked man. Evil is always looking out for the means by which God will advance His Kingdom and now this knowledge was known to all.

I took this advice seriously as these guys had planted over 100 churches in the Papua New Guinea wilderness and have experienced demonic attacks modern science would fail to rationalise. What freaked me out more then that was that they openly state that there is more demonic activity in modern Melbourne than they experienced in PNG.

They asked me to commit this to prayer and wait on God.

As for the little old lady, they flat out mentioned that I had cast away a direct demonic attack on me by calling out to God when I felt totally strange during her “prayer’. This seemed to align itself with what they said about the bikie dude incident - that I would now be open to spiritual attack.

They also mentioned to keep guard on my spiritual walk in the coming years and that I may be open to more attacks as the enemy now knew God’s method of action in my area.

Well if it was just mere coincidence or fulfilled prophecy, I cant say. But since then my walk with Jesus took a battering and I have barely managed to keep it alive. I have struggled with sin more then ever and have had illness ruin my life on many fronts.

But I still remember the events as if they happened yesterday. Ten years on I still wonder what they meant and would love to see them played out in my life. Not so I can get a big head, but that God could choose me, of all the disgusting people on this earth, to bring forward His Kingdom. What an honour to work for my King!

Like when Mary must have buzzed out when the shepherds came into the manger and told them what the angels have said about her baby (Luke 2:8-20), I too treasure these things and ponder about them in my heart. Not that I’m going to give birth to the Messiah, but that He may choose me to fulfil a very specific purpose in His Kingdom in my home city that He decided to reveal to me in His earthly city of Jerusalem.

Lord if this was your word back then, may I not find peace until I achieve what you have set me to complete. Guide me Lord. Today. More than ever. And may I not despise this prophecy but test to be proven true.