Geography Is Irrelevant! - Part II

As we were leaving the group of angry rednecks, we gave them one last opportunity to bow their knee to Jesus and they refused. We excused ourselves and were about to walk away when they challenged us to preach to a notorious gang member they said had killed before. They gave us a description of what he looked like and pointed across the lot to where he was supposed to be. They told us that if we started to preach to this guy that he would pull out the 9mm he had in his belt and blow us away. They told us that we would be absolutely crazy to preach to this guy… Well, that sounded like a challenge to me, so we assured them that we would preach to that very guy.

We excused ourselves and headed across the town square in the direction that they were pointing. We were scanning the crowd, looking for the infamous “sinner” that was sure to blow us away if we preached to him and saw a group of three girls standing by a car. One of the girls had a pair of handcuffs she was holding. That got my attention so I turned to her and asked her what they were for. She gave me some description about it being for some deviant sexual practice and while she was talking, the Lord gave me a word of knowledge for her. The Lord told me that the handcuffs were symbolic of her life; she was in complete and total bondage to several different vices, all at once.

We started talking to her and I just spoke to her what the Lord was showing me, “You are in bondage to many different things all at once. You used to be able to make decisions to do wrong, but your addiction no longer even gives you that option, these demons eating your lunch make all of the decisions for you now, don’t they?” She was kind of fooling around to this point, but instantly sobered up saying, “Oh my God, that is wild! How did you know that?” We promise her that if she wants to be free, God will set her free, TONIGHT. She says she wants to be free.

As I am talking to her, the girl standing next to her jumps back and screams, “What was that!?”. “What?” I said. “That blue light! I just saw a blue light and it freaked me out!” Seeing an opportunity to get her attention, I told her, “Maybe it’s my angel?” She looks at me and looks totally perplaxed, I continue, “Yeah, I have a couple angels that walk with me (Hebrews 1:14) and maybe that’s what you are seeing?” She looks at me like I am crazy and I tell her, “Why don’t you let me pray for you and let’s see if God shows us something for you?” She agrees, I grab her hands just knowing that God is going to blast her. I ask her to close her eyes, which she does hesitantly. No more than 5 seconds after she closes her eyes, I feel a bolt of the power of God flow out of my spirit, down my arms and into her. She jerks back and in a very worried tone says, “Oh my God, what was that?” I tell her that the Holy Spirit just touched her to confirm what we are preaching and ask her if she wants more. “Yes!” she exclaims. I pray for her again and again a jolt of the power of God hits her; she holds on and asks for more. We pray again, God zaps her again and now she looks inebriated. I ask her how she feels and she says, “Drunk!”

I start to explain to all of them that God is real; He loves them and wants a relationship with them. We start to tell them that we aren’t talking about religion or “going to church” but we are talking about a real God, perfectly willing to prove Himself to them wanting to set them free. We tell them that they have to turn to the Lord and make Him Lord and King of their lives. They are spellbound, thanks to the demonstration of God’s power.

We turn to girl #3 and ask her if we can pray for her too. She agrees and we start to pray. I feel a blockage, like she won’t be receiving a touch from God and the Lord starts to show me hurt and pain in her life. I can’t explain other than to say I just knew that she was sexually abused as a young child and blames herself. I start to tell her that it wasn’t her fault and that she was a victim of an attack from the enemy. I start to tell her that the enemy is out to kill her and ruin her life (John 10:10) but Jesus is here to rescue her and will set her free from the bondage of this thing. A girl on our team gets a word that she doesn’t feel safe and even her sleep is hampered with memories of this trauma. The whole time, we don’t mention the word “abuse” but we are connecting, she knows exactly what we are talking about and her friends do too. They are both exclaiming, “That is so wild, how do you guys know this stuff?” We pray for girl #3 and the Lord starts to touch her dramatically, setting her free from a lifetime of guilt, shame and condemnation. The light of His presence shines on her heart and unlocks the chains that were holding her bound to the memory of abuse.

We tell them all that the Lord loves them so much that He would send us all the way from Woodstock, Georgia to set them free and as we are talking, guess who walks up to us? That’s right, the “evil” pistol packing gang member that the angry rednecks described to us. He knows the girls that we are talking to and is coming by to see what’s up. I have a split second decision to either let him come and go, not saying anything due to fear of reprisal or preach the Gospel to him. I choose the latter. I turn around, face him and tell him, “I was told that I should be afraid of you”. He looks confused and says, “Listen, if you don’t hurt me, I won’t hurt you.” I tell him, “Earlier in the night, some guys told me that if I preached to Gospel to you, then you would shoot me, but I figure that you must really need the gospel if people are saying stuff like that. So, I am going to preach the Gospel to you”. He says, “Are you a preacher?” “Yup” I reply. To my amazement, he reaches out his hand to shake and asks for my phone number saying, “Give me your number; I need to sit down and talk with you. Will you talk to me?” “Of course” I tell him. He walks away, saying that he will call me later in the week.

As I am reeling with surprise on how that “confrontation” went, a gentleman on our team gets a word of knowledge for girl #2 and she comes to tears in a minute. We spread out, leading girl #1 to Jesus on the spot and getting girl #3 to agree to go home that night and get right with God. Girl #2 is a puddle as God shows us the secrets of her heart. She assures us that she is a believer and we tell her to get right with God. She agrees that she has been straying and all three of them dedicate themselves to the Lord.

We wrapped up a few minutes later and headed back home to Georgia, exhausted but thrilled with the proof that the Gospel of the Kingdom works WHEREVER it is preached!

Indeed, “Geography Is Irrelevant!”