Wednesday, June 08, 2005

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…

6 comments:

Laura said...

Ryan,

So when do we get to hear the rest of the story!!
Sound so exciting.
And by the way, do you know Brandon? He's my nephew

Anonymous said...

Best...Night...EVER.

Unknown said...

Laura,

The rest of the story is coming soon!
Which Brandon? I know several.

Ryan

Laura said...

Ryan

Brandon S. who hails from VT.

We are so excited for you guys and all God is doing with you and here in SC we are stepping out more and more and trying to be brave enough to just obey!!

We are about 4 hours from Atlanta and hope to visit soon and check out whats going. The stories you've been sharing are amazing and I (and my hubby) are so tired of hearing peopl talk about miracles and teach about miracle, we want too see the stuff! We are desperate for REALity of God in our lives.
More POWER to ya

Laura (from VT, now in SC)

Unknown said...

Laura,

Heck yeah I know Brandon! Just talked to him yesterday...

About seeing the power of God demonstrated: We decided a couple years ago that it wasn't happening in church, in meetings like we wanted to see it. As much as we tried to convince ourselves, the lost just weren't running to us, we would have to go to them!

So, we went to where they are, found them in their natural habitat and just started declaring, "The Kingdom of God is at hand!" Everything that happened after that is a result of simply going and speaking the message of the Gospel.

Blessings,
Ryan

Laura said...

Ryan,

Tell him I said hey and Im jealous that you guys are having all the fun.

We met (by supernatural Godincidence) a guy in Columbia whose wife went to the SAME church we did back in VT. They are going out to restaurants , malls and such and prophecying over people. Not long ago this guy got a word for someone that their grandson was going to be okay. As far as they (the grandparents) knew, there was nothing wrong. The guy gave them a business card and a few hours later they called the number on it to say thanks. Their grandson had just had a seisure and was being rushed to the hospital, but they had peace that all would be ok, becuase God let them know ahead of time. How cool is that!
As far as where the stuff happens, Jesus didn't work miracles in the temple, He did them in the streets, and if He's our example, well...
The thing is, we are taught to bring all our friends to church and we are also taught not to consort with the world. Well if we dont go to them, who will? And I know lots of folks who wouldn't set foot in a church, but that dosen't make them any less hungry for God.

We here in SC are just starting to step out and do stuff (God have given me several words of knowldge for people recently and I have two friends who have been praying for the sick in the grocery store, or Lowe's or wherever. We haven't seen too much in dramatic results yet, but your stories are an inspiration to keep on keeping on.
Thanks

Laura