“Unfortunately I cannot write in English and I hope you can read this email. I must place on record my gratitude to God for your life and for your wife. Through this seminar in simple, clear and real language, I really have been given understanding of the true will of Jesus.
I had been attending my church camp. But at home that day (Thursday, February 4, 2016) I was studying Paul’s epistle to the Thessalonians. I was wondering and imagining Paul writing about the coming of Jesus fifty years after his death and resurrection. I was imagining people at that time perhaps believing that they would see the return of the Lord, but nothing happened. So I asked God why to this day He has not returned, and His coming still in the future?
During the day my husband had the strength to go to our church camp, but I did not go. I wanted something extraordinary from the Lord. I was studying about healing and deliverance and wanted to know how to cast out demons and help people around me. I could not stand to see people suffering and not know what were the resources available to help them.
I live in Belo Horizonte and my sister in Betim had enrolled me in your seminar at the New Canaan Baptist Church there. And on the first day (Friday, February 5) the Holy Spirit used you to answer for me the question why Jesus did not come back. I was euphoric sitting in the church, seeing the works of God ministering to and healing His children! The Lord went so far to answer my question. God is thorough and wonderful! I now have the clear answer within me, and with a great desire to help in this work of evangelism, to heal, to free the captives until my days on earth are over!
Thanks for everything! Continue on this path! I do not know if we will meet again in this life, but we can one day be together praising and worshiping the Lord in our eternal home! I will be praying for your lives! And God told me in my heart to record any change in my life from this day on! As a young woman and a new warrior I will go to war, preaching the gospel from house to house taking Christ to all!
Never give up this work! I feel embraced by the Lord Jesus in this seminar!”
– Leandra in Brazil
(Translated from Portuguese with the help of Google)
Our view in short: one primary reason why Christ has not returned in 2,000 years
During the lifetime of Paul the gospel as recorded in Acts spread rapidly throughout the known world. One primary reason for this was the many unprecedented miraculous healings and miracles which accompanied and confirmed the preaching of the gospel to the lost, convincing them that Jesus was in fact the only way to the Father.
Following Acts, however, church history does not record the same level of the supernatural in or through the Church in its witness to the world. Some scholars have formalized (and I dare say rationalized) this in a doctrine called cessationism whereby it is essentially the Lord who has withdrawn the miracles. Some who accept this doctrine today do so in part in understandable reaction to some extreme practices and teachings of hypercharismatics—for example the practice of “grave-sucking.”
In our view, it is too convenient to place all the responsibility for the lack of the miraculous—especially in the presentation of the gospel to those who never heard—on a decision by the Lord. We are convinced that the Church bears a significant portion of the responsibility. Somewhere in the early history of the Church, the leaders failed to pass on to the following generation (as Jesus did to his disciples) the understanding of the authority and power over disease and demons which the Lord delegated to the early disciples for proclaiming of the kingdom of God to the lost in connection with fulfilling the Great Commission—which must precede the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Lacking the essential dimension of the miraculous in its proclamation, the advance of the gospel in unreached resistant regions was severely impeded if not stalled.
Leandra’s original message in Portuguese
“Infelizmente não consigo escrever em Inglês e espero que leia este e-mail. Faço questão de deixar registrado a minha gratidão a Deus pela sua vida e da sua esposa. Este tempo do seminário, através de uma linguagem simples, clara e real, pude realmente ter contanto com a verdadeira vontade de Jesus.
Eu ia participar de um acampamento da minha igreja, só que na quinta-feira dia 04/02/2016, eu estava estudando sobre o livro de Tessalonicenses, e fiquei me perguntando e imaginando Paulo escrevendo sobre a vinda de Jesus 50 anos depois da morte, e imaginando o povo sedento, talvez acreditando que eles irão ver estas coisas e nada acontecia. Então perguntei a Deus porque até hoje ele não voltou, e se estaria longe de acontecer ?
Durante o dia meu marido criou uma resistência enorme de ir no acampamento da igreja, eu desisti de ir, mas eu queria algo extraordinário do Senhor, eu já estava estudando sobre cura e libertação e queria saber como expulsar demônios e ajudar as pessoas ao meu redor. Não aguentava mais ver as pessoas sofrendo e não saber quais eram os recursos disponíveis. Eu moro em Belo Horizonte e minha irmã em Betim, ela me inscreveu neste seminário. E logo no primeiro dia o Espirito Santo usou sua boca para me responder o porque ele não voltou…. Eu fiquei eufórica dentro da igreja, vendo o agir de Deus ! E o cuidado com seus filhos….! Usou o Senhor de tão longe para me responder meu questionamento…. Deus é detalhista e maravilhoso….! Estou com a resposta bem clara dentro de mim…. e com um desejo grande de ajudar nesta obra de evangelizar, de curar, de libertar os cativos até o fim da minha vida…!
Obrigada por tudo ! Continue nesta caminhada ! Não sei se iremos nos encontrar novamente nesta vida, isto será o cuidado do Senhor…. mas que possamos um dia estarmos todos juntos louvando e adorando o Senhor na nossa morada eterna ! Estarei orando pela suas vidas ! E Deus me pediu no meu coração para registrar toda a mudança da minha vida a partir deste dia…! Uma nova mulher, uma nova guerreira irá para guerra, de casa em casa como já estava fazendo… levando Cristo a todos que estiverem em meu alcance…!
Nunca desista deste trabalho…. me sinto abraçada por Jesus neste seminário !”
The Elijah Challenge in Brazil
From Caroline
“My name is Caroline. I’m a member of New Canaan Baptist Church in the city of Betim, Minas Gerais. My husband Denio and I attended your Seminar during February 5-8, 2016. It was a blessing. I was converted at 18 years and found that I could not minister healing and deliverance and had not taken possession of the authority and power Jesus gave me [as his disciple]. It was the wrong way, and not the way Jesus taught.
This Seminar marked my life. Now I use mountain-moving faith to minister with authority and power in Jesus’ name. Thank you for teaching us to break with our [unscriptural] traditions. The Lord Jesus bless you, your wife and your entire family. What you taught us those days is priceless.
May the Lord Jesus reward you and every day may you be filled with the Holy Spirit. I would like to have the Powerpoint Presentation of the teaching. I will continue studying it. I will also share it with my brother and brother-in-law who are pastors and could not be at the Seminar. With your permission I will also send it to my brother who is a missionary in Italy. Thanks for everything.
On Saturday February 6th [at the Seminar], Jesus healed my mother of cardiac arrhythmia. I was very happy.”
Caroline & Ermita her mother
Caroline’s original message in Portuguese
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