Riot! – Part I

The night started off peacefully enough. I remember when we arrived that I felt ten feet tall and bulletproof. I told the team that I was with that, “I feel Dominion!”. I couldn’t explain it other than to say that I felt invincible. Turns out that before the night was over I would need that anointing.

We sent half the team off to prayer walk the lot. The other half would jump in the fray of people and see what the Lord would do. A couple guys from our team walk over to some friends of a few new believers and get to work. Our team immediately starts prophesying some very accurate stuff. The kids are blown away. Before the night is over, they will all meet the Lord through a demonstration of God’s power.

I remember scanning the large crowd, looking for a place to begin. I focus in on a girl that we had spoken to months before. The Lord showed us that she was having night terrors, really bad dreams that kept her from sleeping. We walked over to her to see what was up. The first words out of her mouth are, “The dreams stopped”. We’re blown away. The kindness of God was revealed to her! I ask her what she’s going to do about it now. “Be good” is her reply. “Wrong answer” is mine. A couple of the girls from our team start working with the group she is with and I start explaining to her that the Christian life is not mere morality, but a complete abandonment to the Kingdom of God. She decides that she does not want to giver her life to Jesus, in spite of the fact that Jesus took away her night terrors and now gives her peaceful sleep. I warn her that today is the day of salvation, but she and her friends aren’t budging.

Come to find out, the group of guys she’s hanging with is planning on fighting another guy in the larking lot. We get them to point out the rival group and before walking over to speak to them, we rebuke them for wanting to get into a fight, telling them that the only reason they are into fighting and violence is because they have nothing better to do. We walk over to the group of young men that they are getting ready to fight, walk right up to the biggest guy (the ring leader) and tell him simply, “You won’t be fighting tonight”. He looks at us and angrily says, “What?!” I said, “You heard me, you won’t be fighting tonight.” “Why not?” he replies. “Because you will be too busy getting born again” I say to him.

This totally send his rage over the edge and he immediately starts to curse me out, saying to get the $%^& out of his face or he’s going to beat the $%^& out of me! We have realized something out there with the lost. We can never respond to threats. It is equivalent to obeying the enemy. When they tell us what to do and threaten physical harm we just simply can’t respond! Jesus is King, not their demon anger of hate! Anyway, we don’t back down and proceed to preach to this VERY angry guy the Kingdom of God. His fighting friends get involved and start to get in my face, telling me what they will do to me if I don’t stop preaching. I ignore them and continue to preach the Gospel, all the while rebuking their demons of hate and anger.

An angry young man comes up to me and says, “I am Muslim, so what are you saying, do you think that your God is better than mine?” I reply, “This is what I am saying, Jesus is King and Mohammed and Allah are nothing! They will both bow the knee to Jesus”. My new angry Muslim friend explodes in rage and jumps at me, but a friend of his jumps between him and me, stopping him from attacking me. I continue to tell him that Jesus is King. More than that, Jesus is a good King and not an angry god like Allah. In doing so, I am aware that this guy’s core temperature is going through the roof!

In no time at all, I am confronted with a gaggle of very angry young men, all intent on killing me. I receive death threats, being told that I will have my throat cut, I will be stabbed, shot and beaten to death, along with my friends. Our reply? “You guys do what you need to do and we’ll do what we need to do. We MUST preach the Gospel to you!” A couple peacemakers come up to us and warn us not to keep preaching or these guys will beat us up. We thank them for their concern and inform them that we are here to preach the Gospel, not to bow to anger and rage.

At this moment, a couple of police officers walk through the parking lot with a couple of observers (wearing bullet proof vests, mind you!), scanning what’s going on. The kids I am with see them and back off of us a bit. One of our main persecutors, a religious kid who goes out of his way to cause us trouble walks up to the cops and starts pointing me out. I walk up to the police, point to the religious kid and say, “He doesn’t like me much”. The kid is telling the cops that we are out there preaching to them and tell them about hell and things like that. He is telling them that they don’t want to hear what we have to say and can the police please remove us. The police office looks straight at him and laughs! He says, “Welcome to America, it’s called free speech! If you don’t like what he (pointing to me) has to say, then go home!” The kid walks off all dejected, as the VERY angry young Muslim guy walks up to the police and says, “I am Muslim and this guy says that His God is superior to mine, can you stop him?” The police office looks at him and begins to mock him saying, “Hello?! Welcome to the United States, we have something here called freedom of religion and freedom of speech! It’s probably why you and your family moved here in the first place!” The Muslim kid walks off angrier than ever, being humiliated by the police.

After coming to our defense, the police continue to walk through the lot. We are almost instantly encircled with more angry people than before. One kid in particular starts to mock us, saying that he is God! We walk up to him and the Lord shows us a couple of instant words of knowledge about him. He is obviously under the influence of something, so what we say to him goes straight into his spirit. One of the girls on our team, Erin, gives him a word of knowledge about himself and it’s absolutely on the mark! Before he can get control, his eyes start to water and he just looks at her with amazement. His friend, John, jumps in there and starts to tell him, “Don’t let them (us) talk to you! They are crazy, don’t listen to what they are saying!” Erin continues and gives him some words about his dad, these cut him to the heart and he is obviously shaken, saying, “Go on, you must be psychic!”

To be continued…