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There was a day in the ministry of Jesus Christ when the
Prince of Peace became the Lion of Judah, and He jealously drove the money
changers out of God's temple (Matthew 21:12). This fiery aggression of the
Lord was called "the zeal of the Lord's house" (John 2:17; Psalm 69:9), and
in this passion, Jesus served and "tended" the presence of God.
How I long to emulate and also to witness in others this
passionate zeal for the Lord and for His saving work in the earth; and when
I went with the A Great Love missions team and Reverend Bobbie Jean Merck to
Sweden and to Russia this year, I saw it! I saw that same fervent love "not
just in one but in thousands, leaving all for Christ and His Gospel, "And
this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness
unto all nations..." (Matthew 24:14).
We first visited the Word of Life Church in Uppsala Sweden, founded
by Apostle Ulf Eckman. Since 1983, this "fathering" church has matured that
ardent zeal of the Lord into a virtual invasion of the continent of Asia,
starting over 1500 identical churches and Bible schools in many former
Soviet Union countries! These believers walk in awesome order under their
overseeing leaders, with an intense discipline of intercessory prayer,
worship and the Word; yet even the strongest need a special Word from time
to time to refresh them and keep them on track.
So it was in Sweden, where God called this nation-reaching church
BACK to the liberty and the "right-of-way" of the Holy Ghost to move in
their lives and ministries. As in First Corinthians 1:27, the Lord chose
several foolish acts to restore His spontaneous flow to this powerful
church, like good old fashioned "running the aisles"! It probably looked
very childish for hundreds of people from many different countries to speed
up and down the several aisles of the church with their hands raised in
outlandish praise to God; but these precious saints were renewing their joy
and their dependence upon the manifestation of the Spirit.
God revived the priority of the Holy Ghost in them that night, and
He then confirmed that revival with many instant healings throughout the
congregation, including my own healing in my knees! The ministry there
in Uppsala seemed encouraged again in their fresh love of the Spirit to
finish their race in the holy might that is found only in the free flow of
the Holy Spirit!
The team then traveled to Russia, to the Word of Life Church in
Moscow. Here I was absolutely overwhelmed with thousands of modern day
disciples that were totally consumed with the Gospel and its demonstration.
They loved us as though we were Christ Himself, and they received the Word
from Reverend Merck as the very oracles of God.
Hundreds of teams have gone from this church into some of the
hardest areas of former communist Russia, and they seem to live and breathe
for the next Bible school or church to begin; yet they themselves in Moscow
do not even have a building of their own. Every weekend they meet in a
different location, because of the astronomical cost of owning property in
this city of 16 million people. Through their vast cell group operation,
they communicate with their two thousand members as to the next location;
yet they never complain. On the contrary, they rejoiced and wept over our
four day visit as passionately in the old theater on Monday morning as they
did in the hotel concert hall on Wednesday night.
Together day and night, we feasted on the presence of God and on
the anointed Word that came through Apostle Bobbie Jean, which for me
culminated on the final night in the glorious revelation of the Priestly
Blessing in Numbers 6. That night, after the Word came, Reverend Merck
called the pastor and his wife to the platform. As a holy "hush" began to
settle over the congregation, she read the Priestly Blessing word for word
over the people, and then she asked the pastor to do the same in the Russian
language. Then there was silence again, and a blanket of Divine peace began
to settle upon the people, moving us to weep and surrender our lives anew to
the Lord.
As this wave of peace moved from person to person, there also came
screams and convulsions from several in the audience, with loud declarations
in the Russian language. We later found out the translation of these
declarations, each exactly the same as the other: "We don't want to come
out, we don't want to leave." This holy peace from God was arresting
the work of devils in certain people, and the demons were screaming and
displaying their defiance as they were compelled to release those souls by
the mighty power of the Holy Ghost! These deliverances and this surrender
then precipitated the greatest miracle of all, as many unsaved people began
to file down to the front to receive Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord!
Oh, wonder of wonders, I felt like I had been born again-again! The
glory of God I saw in the order, the sacrificing love, and the child-like
faith of these precious Russian saints brought a life-changing conviction
upon my life, from which I hope to never recover. May we all be that
convinced of the holiness and the world-concern of our Master in heaven, and
may the zeal of the Lord's house consume us to such denial of worldly
pleasure and such simplicity of faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
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