I remember a godly, prayerful old woman who was in our church in the early 80s who has now gone on to be with the Lord who sometimes laughed to herself pleasantly and unobtrusively, after being prayed for.
I also remember being alone praying in my room, when I was a teenager, in the early 80s. I had come home from school burdened to pray for some unsaved fellow-students. After interceding for a while, I got a note of victory in my spirit, and began to laugh.
Then in about '93, I felt led to pray with and for a woman, and to everyone's surprise including my own, she began to have a joyful experience with the Lord which lasted about five minutes.
Next in about '95, I had given an altar call in a church, and so many people responded, so I decided to ask the Pastor's wife to help me by praying for some of the women. Her eyes were closed, so in order to get her attention I briefly touched her wrist - and as soon as I did so, she fell to the floor - and she was still on the floor after everyone else went home, until only her husband (the Pastor) and I were left. Her husband looked at her rolling around the floor praying and rejoicing, and asked me, "What's happening to my wife?" I said, "I don't know, but I know it's good - and I know it's God". When I'd touched her, I wasn't even releasing my faith - I was simply wanting to get her attention to ask her to come help.
On each of the above occasions I only saw INDIVIDUALS laugh for joy - I still had not seen a WHOLE CONGREGATION laugh for joy in the Holy Spirit. In fact, I'd never heard of such a thing.
A short time later I was in another meeting and the Lord told me He wanted to touch His people. So I told the congregation this, and then many people started crying. Others began speaking with tongues. I found out later, it was their first time to speak with tongues. No-one even laid hands on them. It just fell on the congregation. Others prophesied and saw visions.
Watching everyone cry, I wondered how much of it was the Holy Spirit and how much was just emotions. I remembered the Scripture: "the fruit of the Spirit is...joy". So I asked the Lord to show me some joy. Before I finished asking, the whole church began to laugh. I'd never seen a whole congregation laugh before. At this time I had no knowledge of what was happening in Rodney Howard-Browne's meetings or at Toronto. This happened faraway on the mission-field where I'd been for many months and I'd heard no news from around the world.
A few months later still in the same country I was preaching in a different church, and the Lord told me He wanted the congregation to receive the joy of the Lord. I didn't know what to do, so I laid hands on several people and said, "Receive the joy of the Lord". Pretty soon the whole church was laughing. After 40 minutes, a deacon asked for testimonies. We heard testimony after testimony of a deeper work that had been going on in people's hearts whilst they were laughing, such as healings. I still had not heard about Toronto or any such thing.
For quite some time God had been preparing me by showing me in the Scriptures that He wanted us to break out of the usual mould of how we run church services, showing me that He wanted His Spirit to manifest. So the results we were seeing came as a result of acting on what we were seeing in the Scriptures. The more we made room for God, the more we saw in manifestation - not because we'd come into contact with Toronto, because we hadn't come into contact with it, we hadn't even heard about it.
The more God moved, the more people gathered. Night after night the people gathered as God visited. Other churches started joining us. This was in a very remote part of that particular country. There was lots of laughter, tears, repentance, confession, reconciliation, deliverance from demons, visions, tongues, interpretations, prophesying, a little bit of healing, and lots of preaching of the Gospel. It spread to many churches. Unprecedented unity came about. It spread to High Schools and Universities. Lots of sinners came to Christ. It even happened that unbelievers heard their own language being spoken as others spoke with tongues, and as a result of this sign they came under conviction and repented. Many young people felt called into the ministry, and made the decision to go to Bible college. It was a wonderful move of God that lasted for months. Pastors from other islands came to check it out, then the same revival broke out in their own churches when they went home. Literally thousands of people were touched by the Holy Spirit.
At the height of all of this happening, a Pastor from my home country of Australia came to visit. And he told me of similar things happening with Rodney Howard-Browne and at Toronto. This was the first I ever knew of it.
The Pastor from Australia witnessed what was happening with us. For example, he saw one 14-yr old girl who was filled with the Spirit and spoke in tongues. She could barely speak her own language for days! When she got to school on Monday, she was still speaking in tongues. The teacher claimed to understand her, yet she knew the girl couldn't speak that particular language. The whole class fell under the power of God. The girl laid hands on her classmates, cast out demons, and led them to the Lord. All over the school, students started to come under a conviction of sin. Classes couldn't continue! This lasted for days, for weeks. It soon spread to other educational institutions. I visited one University, and saw students on the floor under the power of the Spirit, in a lecture room. God started to pour out His Spirit upon other townships too.
After 19-months I returned to my home country of Australia, to discover that everyone was ta
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animal noises
Thank you John.
The animal noises were symptomatic of every church that had sent people to Toronto or had teams from Toronto come to them and 'pass on' what they called the blessing.
Animal noises were not the worst behaviours either. Some hitched up skirts and made bearing-down noises and actions of labouring and justified it with labels such as the 'new birth'.
The Word and The Spirit work together. Where the Spirit is at work the Word will also be preached.
Its hard to say "every"
Hi Nisa,
I was in Romania at the time the Toronto type move was going on. I even went to Toronto in 1997 to check it out after a couple of years while I was in North America. I never heard any animal noises whatsoever. Mind you, Toronto was pretty quiet by then. They had a huge building but not many people coming on the weekdays. To be able to say "animal noises were symptomatic of every church that had sent people to Toronto" you would have to visit a LOT of churches. I can assure you that this was not the case. A single counter-example is sufficient to disprove the statement. If it is truth that you value, then please be open to correction on this point.
I never saw animal noises in any church. I don't think I saw as pure an expression of this movement as John has seen. Actually, I know John personally - have done so since the early 1990s - and while we have slightly different perspectives on some issues, I know him to be a man of sincere faith and genuine love for the Lord who would not lie to impress you or me.
Having said that, I do think the Toronto proponents DID massively undervalue the Word of God and the preaching of the Word. But perhaps there is something to be said for the idea that God intended to correct an imbalance. In many places there is preaching with zero expectation of any extra-ordinary operation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit to follow. I don't believe this honors God either.
The whole issue is to me not as simple as most would see. I believe we should major on pursuing God and the application of His truth and not spend too much energy on rebuking things which are neither anti-Bible nor explicitly endorsed in the Bible. But neither should we just trust men and "big ministries". The Bible says to "test all things" - we do that and we also want to "hold fast to the good" where we can.
'every'
I take your point on the use of the word 'every'. I apologise it was an exaggeration. I should, perhaps have said "many UK churches" which had received the 'Toronto outpouring' directly from teams who had visited Toronto or teams sent from Toronto were reported (widely in both secular and Christian publications and news media) to have animal noises manifesting in their meetings. I have also added to this the testimony of friends and family from different churches who might had been going from meeting to meeting for the 'blessing' at that time.
Animal noises
Hi Nisa ,
This form of manifestation of the Holy Spirit may be a new one.
In both the Old and New Testaments
there is hardly any mention of people falling backwards , when hands are laid ,.......
but this is widely prevalant in
evangelical prayer meetings , after the laying of hands ,.....
This caused me to think that the animal noises / laughter is a new form of manifestation of the Holy Spirit.
Tell me I am wrong , if you think so.
Feel free to mail me directly
luke555@rediffmail.com
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