I belong to the Presbyterian Church, and we had everything in order. When we went to church, everything was written down on paper. The pastor read one part, and we read the other part. We know when to stand, when to sit, when to pray, and when to sing. I really thanked God for, and appreciated, that order in my church.
But in my church, we had no power at all. When the revival came, God gave us all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as power and love and order.
The Night Everything Changed
I remember well that night of September 26, 1965.
About 200 people of all ages were gathered in our church praying together. As we were praying, suddenly something strange took place. If you will read in your Bible, Acts 2, you will find out what happened in my church. We had known this Bible portion for many years. As a matter of fact, many of us had memorized it. But we had never experienced it in our own lives. Our pastor often said to us, “Since God gave the Holy Spirit to the church 2,000 years ago, if you are a member of the church, automatically you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” That night the Lord began to open our eyes that it isn’t an automatic thing.
That night as we were praying together, suddenly the Holy Spirit came just as He did on the Day of Pentecost. In Acts 2, we read that He came from heaven like the mighty rushing wind. And that night, as I was sitting next to my sister, I heard this mighty rushing sound. It sounded like a small tornado in the church. I looked around and saw nothing. I turned to my sister.
“Dear, do you hear a strange noise?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied, “I do. But forget about the sound, and let’s pray.” She began to pray, and at the same time I heard many others begin to pray. You must know that in our church, we always prayed in absolute order, one by one.
For one person to pray in our church was enough, since everything was written in front of us. If many were to pray, we had to write a whole bunch of prayers. But that night those Presbyterians started to forget the written order and the prayers in front of them and began to pray in the Spirit – at first one by one, and before I knew it, they all began to pray at the same time.
“Oh, my dear Jesus, what’s going on in this church? They have forgotten the written order,” I said.
The Fire That Wasn’t Burning
As everyone was praying, I looked at the pastors.
My, what an anxious look they had on their faces. They were sitting in the front of the church on the platform, and they didn’t know how to handle those 200 people. They too heard the mighty rushing wind. I looked around again and still there was nothing moving; it was only a sound. Then I heard the fire bell ringing loud and fast. Across the street from the church was the police station and the fire bell. The man in the police station saw that our church was on fire, so he rang the bell to tell the people of the village to come quick, there was a fire.
In Indonesia, especially in Timor, we don’t have fire trucks. We just ring the fire bell, and the people realize that there is a fire and come from all over the village with their buckets of water and other things to help put out the fire. When they got to the church, they saw the flames, but the church wasn’t burning. Instead of a natural fire, it was the fire of God. Because of this, many people received Jesus Christ as their Savior and also the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Of course, being Presbyterians, we were not familiar then with the words “baptism or infilling of the Holy Spirit.” This was something new to us. But the Lord opened our eyes and told us that these were the things we must experience in our lives; that we couldn’t depend on the Pentecost of years ago.
Miraculous Monday: 19th September 2022
Miraculous Monday 009
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