The beginning of the Restoration of God’s Healing Power in the Streets of Houston
At 5 PM last Sunday, an excited group of believers from both conservative evangelical and charismatic/pentecostal streams (among them were some from Houston’s First Baptist) gathered to minister at an evangelistic crusade meeting. I stood up to preach the gospel with the help of my Spanish language interpreter, Ruth Ortiz. Before the people I set forth the claim that Jesus Christ was equal to the Father and as such had authority to meet man’s most pressing need: the forgiveness of sin. Then I told the people that we would ask God to prove the claim I had just made about Jesus by performing miracles of physical healing. These miraculous healings would be done through believers in Jesus Christ.
I asked the believers trained in the Saturday Healing Encounter to come forward. Then, after a brief prayer, I invited those with infirmities to come forward for the laying on of hands. I released the believers to minister with authority as Jesus and the early disciples did two thousand years ago. After a few minutes, people began to come up to the platform to testify of their healings. One notable testimony was given by a woman whose neck had been broken in an accident seven years ago. Since then she had been unable to turn her neck normally. But when believers laid their hands on her, God healed her neck. As she testified, she turned her neck back and forth freely with an incredulous grin on her face. She’s the woman in the center of the photo below.
“My neck is healed!”
Among the several other testimonies that evening were relief from kidney pain, abdominal cancer pain, deafness in one ear, as well as deliverance from an oppressing spirit. No less significant was the fact that God was using both conservative evangelical and charismatic/pentecostal believers to do these miracles. Praise the Lord for His faithfulness!
Then I gave the altar call for people to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. Having witnessed the power of Jesus’ name to heal, precious souls raised their hands to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Dramatically delivered from unclean spirits from former lifestyle
Pain from stomach cancer vanishes “I felt the devil come out of me”
Deaf ear pops open
Pain from stomach cancer vanishes “I felt the devil come out of me”
Pre-Crusade Miracle
Some unusual things have happened leading up to this our first Evangelistic Healing Crusade in Houston….
During the Crusade meeting this Sunday evening in Word of Power Church, a brother named Bob Snow led a Solemn Assembly outside the church where intercessory prayer and spiritual warfare was conducted. He agreed to do this at our planning meeting two weeks before the Crusade. Shortly afterwards, Bob was savagedly attacked by the enemy. He wrote:
“Never have I experienced such attacks of the enemy, as when I agreed to follow you in what the Lord is doing and going to do.
From scrambled [email] transmissions to multiple auto accidents…
Last Tuesday I was side swiped on IH-10 near McCarty. About $2400.00 damage to my Durango… Then last Friday evening I was involved in a “T-Bone” collision when a lady pulled in front of me. Disabling me for work and disabling my vehicle. I am so sore I can hardly lie down and rest. The legs, back, neck, ankles, and knees do not want to work without pain. Also the enemy has disabled my vehicle and the lady I ran into says she does not have insurance.
The enemy has deprived me of my income and financial resources, so I may not be able to make the meetings…….I do not have a vehicle, except the Lord provide.”
We went to see Bob to pray for God’s healing grace. After prayer, we laid hands on him. This is what happened according to Bob’s testimony….
“It is my joy to share a personal miracle. I confess I have been a bit skeptical of the reality of miraculous healing in our country and time. Until this morning…….I searched scripture and thoroughly examined Luke 9:1 and I claimed that scripture for myself.
I asked our Father to remove all of my doubts, fears and hesitations to stand in His authority and power.
B. & L. came to visit with me, after my two recent automobile accidents….
I was suffering with ribs separated from the sternum, whiplash in the neck, pain in the lumbar region from having seatbelt bruising and an airbag exploding in my face. The physicians have prescribed three different anti inflammatories and pain killers.
B. prayed for me… L. echoed the prayer. I agreed in faith and demanded that the enemy stop tormenting me with pain and inability to move..
It is really hard to place a physical description on what happened next…
I felt a surging of power, as I have never experienced… I envisioned a stream flowing from the glory of Heaven and washing over me….
I felt such release, such peace, and I knew in my heart and mind that I was free from pain, and inability to move or stand without difficulty.
I then stood and bent when asked by B. to do so!!!!!! I felt no discomfort, only a little tightness in previously torn and strained muscles and ligaments…I could take a full deep breath without the sharp sternal pains..
I am standing as an example of what our Father wants to reveal in the upcoming crusade. Our God is truly a miraculous God. I stand in amazed awe of His greatness and Glory…Be prepared for truly wondrous things as He reveals His power, Glory and Grace in bringing the lost to himself…”
(Bob can be contacted at 832-483-3893, or 713-477-3145 at home, or at [email protected].)
We later spoke with Bob. He had gone back to his doctor at the VA Hospital, where X-rays had been taken just after his accident showing the injuries to his sternum (breast plate bone), back, neck, and ankle. He requested new X-rays to be taken. His doctor, a Korean man who was a Buddhist, was astounded. He called the technician to make sure that the new X-rays and the old X-rays where from the same patient. They indeed were. The doctor could hardly believe what he saw: not only miraculous healing in the injured areas, but new bone growth (of the sternum) in the X-rays!
What should we make of all this?
The enemy is very displeased at what we are starting in Houston. Eventually we intend to target the precious souls of non-Christian religious faith in Houston with this same Elijah-like, “my God is bigger than your god” approach. He especially does did not want believers interceding under Bob’s leadership on the church grounds during the Crusade meeting itself. So he struck out at Bob with great ferocity with two accidents in quick succession, disabling his automobile through an uninsured motorist and immobilizing Bob with great physical pain. But how did the Lord respond?
God responded with even greater power and ferocity. He healed Bob instantly and very dramatically. He is showing that He is very much in this Crusade—He took a very bad situation and turned it around completely to bring glory to Himself and great encouragement to Bob and us. He is giving us a foretaste of what He was going to do at the Crusade meeting….and a foretaste of what He intends to do in the future in the city of Houston.