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My journey into the Prophetic realm, Part 1

I was raised in a denomination that was wary of prophecy. The founder was quite amazing and stressed spiritual encounters all the time before he died in 1919. Sanctification and Healing were two of the four pillars of the denomination.

The denomination was about one-third Pentecostal after the rise of the Pentecostal outpouring in the early 1900’s. But this did not set well with many others who objected to “excesses” and “emotions” that they observed. So in the 1930’s most of the Pentecostals among them left to join other denominations where they could worship in their own way without criticism.

I was thus raised in a tradition that taught a “second work of grace” by the Holy Spirit, but this might better be described as “a quiet work of grace.” They wanted the Holy Spirit as long as He did not embarrass them with “emotional outbreaks.” In regard to the gift of tongues—so important to the Pentecostals—the official policy on their literature was “Seek Not, Forbid Not.” Yet in practice, it was simply “Seek Not.”

Growing up in that denomination, I saw very few miracles. The Holy Spirit does not shun those who restrict Him in some ways. The Spirit finds ways to move among the people in spite of restrictions. Some preaching was certainly anointed and even inspired, but only a few of the gifts of the Spirit were welcome.

Although I have since learned to value all of the spiritual gifts, I am still influenced by the denomination’s quiet manner which has formed my personality. I have no problem with those who are outwardly emotional, yet I am also comfortable with who I am in manifesting the work of the Spirit in me. I recognize that we are all different.

The Beginning

The Charismatic movement began in the 1960’s. By the time I went to Bible College in 1968, it had spread from the Catholic Church into other denominations. It was a little different from the Pentecostal movement, especially in its informal structure. Young people liked the informality and soon the “Jesus People” movement began to spread in the colleges and universities.

I began to meet some of these, which gave me opportunity to observe and discern what was good and what was questionable. But the main result was that in 1971, in my own “quiet” way, I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. About the same time, my wife and I were married, and one of her missionary uncles sang at our wedding. He and other missionaries had returned to America from Mexico and were holding meetings locally in the Twin Cities.

We attended one of their meetings, and the speaker was a Bapticostal. There my wife received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. She was somewhat less quiet and was electrified continuously day and night for three days.

Jesus described the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of truth” (John 16:13) whose job was to “guide you into all the truth.” Almost immediately, The Spirit began to guide me into new truths that I had not been taught in my early years. The first thing I learned was the difference between Israel and Judah, which was crucial in understanding Bible prophecy. Though I still thought in fleshly terms, it was a major shift to see that Judah and Israel were separate nations after the death of Solomon, and that the Israelites were not the Judahites (or “Jews”). Each had a different calling, a different portion of the original birthright, and different prophetic destiny.

In 1973 I was horrified to learn that God intended to save all mankind. It took me eight months to overcome my inner fear and to study it more thoroughly. I knew that if I were to accept this teaching, it would jeopardize my position at the Christian Literature Crusade, where I was being trained to operate a bookstore in Port Moresby in Papua, New Guinea. Sure enough, when I finally brought up the subject in March 1974, they decided that I could not minister in one of their bookstores unless I returned to a more conventional belief.

The Phoenix Years

In 1974 I began to study the law, and in 1975 I was asked to move to Phoenix as an assistant pastor of an independent church. During the six years that I spent in that church, I studied the three big issues mentioned above: (1) the history of Israel and Judah, (2) the restoration of all things, along with church history, and (3) biblical law.

The one problem that I had was that this church had little or no interest in the things of the Spirit. The pastor’s wife had been raised in a “Holy Roller” church and was totally against anything Pentecostal or Charismatic.

My study of Scripture in those years led me to understand the sovereignty of God, and this in turn brought me to the place where I no longer knew how to pray. Should I spend time telling God all the things that He has perhaps forgotten? Should I ask him for “things” and treat Him like a Santa Claus? I no longer had an answer, but God did.

In 1980 things began to go awry in my relationship with the church pastor. In 1981 I was asked to start a church in Las Cruces, NM, since there was a group of like-minded believers that lived in that area. I moved there in August of that year, and the work increased and doubled each month for four months. It seemed as though everything was going my way. I was unaware that I had begun to build my own little kingdom, and I had forgotten that my calling was not to be a pastor but to be a teacher.

Then God called the Net of Prayer into spiritual warfare, beginning on November 12, 1981. Their prayer affected me directly and turned my life upside down.

The Net of Prayer

The NOP had been set up about 5 or 6 years earlier, but it was not activated until 1981. The founder and leader was a prophet named Chuck. He had a vision in which he saw a demonic army coming into America in the formation of a broken cross. It came in through San Francisco and was heading toward Corpus Christi, TX, as if to destroy the Body of Christ.

The broken cross formation represented the corrupted church, and it crossed over Phoenix and Las Cruces. Hence, we were caught up in this battle without knowing it. The NOP divided into five prayer groups, and each attacked the broken cross formation at a different point. The overall prayer of the campaign was: “Father, free your chosen elect from the broken cross system.”

Immediately, God began to move to set me free from my own little kingdom, and the next month I resigned from the church and went into the “wilderness.” Deliverance is not always pleasant, nor do we understand what God is doing. Trying to survive the wilderness drove me to seek God’s face and to know His will for my life.

Learning to Hear His Voice

In February 1982 I met people who knew how to pray. To them, prayer was not about telling God anything or asking Him for something; it was about meditating to hear His voice. That was new to me, and I found it very encouraging and enlightening. On March 20 I went into prayer and asked God four specific questions, which I needed to know.

I heard no answer that day, but in early April I was led to attend a Passover conference in Lexington, KY, which was being sponsored by an old friend, Eldon Purvis. The first morning of the conference was spent praying for those who had needs at the conference. I did not request prayer, but a man soon walked up behind me, put his hand on my back, and said, “I feel the wounds that you have received from your friends.” He proceeded to prophesy over me and to give me the answers to all four questions that I had asked God less than two weeks earlier.

That was the moment that I understood the need for the gift of prophecy in the church. It changed my life and deepened my appreciation for all the spiritual gifts operating in the church. In a very real way, this launched me into the prophetic realm.

Seven weeks later, I went to a Pentecost conference in Schaumberg, Ontario, which was again sponsored by Eldon Purvis. There I met Dr. Gustav Hoyer, the professor’s professor who had continued the work of Ivan Panin in the study of biblical gematria. He told me about the way some were studying the psalms through gematria. The numeric values of the various key words could be seen as frequencies in music, and some had been creating beautiful musical chords using that method.

I also met Sister Thea Eroes at the same conference, which began a solid friendship for many years until she passed away. The Lord had delivered Thea when she was a child in Austria. God caused her to pass bodily through a great iron door, saving her from a massacre that was happening in which she surely would have been killed.

Later, when her parents brought her to America, the ship was surrounded by German submarines that intended to sink the ship. They prayed, and God transported the entire ship across the Atlantic Ocean in what came to be called the fastest voyage in history.

I wrote a summary of her life in a series of weblogs that I did in 2009. Here is Part 1:

https://godskingdom.org/blog/2009/08/theas-story-part-1

I returned from that inspiring conference with a resolve to hear God’s voice. Upon returning home in early June 1982, I began to fast and pray, determined to fast forty days and forty nights if necessary. After three days I began to hear His voice, but I had no confirmation. So I called my friends who knew how to pray and left a simple message on their phone: “How long should I fast to hear God’s voice?”

The answer came late that night when they called to tell me what God had said: “Steve already hears My voice” and “three days is sufficient.” I had just completed three days of fasting, and I had already written down what I thought God had said. This confirmed that I had indeed broken through the barrier, and once again my life was changed forever.