shelter of his wings: The Holy Spirit & His work in a spiritual revival

Hab 3:2 "O Lord, I have heard Your speech and was afraid. O Lord revive Your work in the midst of the years! In the midst of the years make it known. In wrath remember mercy"

Teaching

This verse tells us the following things about a revival:

1. Revival starts with prayer. The prophet asked God for revival after hearing God's speech. He was afraid because he said that he heard the word of the Lord. The word was regarding a pronouncement of wrath upon the inhabitants of the land. A pronouncement of wrath is like a judgment upon the land. The moment we see, hear and discern that there is a kind of judgment coming upon our land, we have to start praying to the Lord "in wrath, remember mercy"!

2. Revival starts with the prayer of sinners. God does hear sinners. We need not wait to be perfect before praying. In fact we should pray even in our sins. 2 Chron 7:14 commands us to humble ourselves and pray, seek God's face and turn from our wicked ways. In this verse God is telling us that we need to turn to Him while we are even in our sins/wickedness otherwise we would have no hope!

Testimony

Cuenca, Batangas, Philippines have seen a spiritual revival as a result of your prayers and the prayers of the Cuenca church!

Our team was there from May 30 to June 7 to teach on the Holy Spirit yet we felt that we had learnt so much more from them than they had learnt from us. The church in Cuenca known as the Cuenca Bible Christian Church has a rich Christian heritage.

There is a book written about how the church was planted called "Assignment: Cuenca". Not only did the first church planters (Auntie Rhoda and Auntie Hanna) faced strong Roman Catholicism, they also faced residents who practiced witchcraft, sorcery, black magic, faith healers of the dark kind. Remember the encounter of the apostles with Simon the sorcerer?

Walk around Cuenca and you will see houses with the words "Healers" in neon lights as though beckoning people to come in to buy potions and spells from them for a fee.

Cuenca folks are a people steeped in the black arts, sorcery and voodoo. Thus we were truly amazed to see a church thriving and growing in the midst of the darkness. The church had even planted 3 other daughter churches - San Jose, San Pascual and Bigain. Many of the people mentioned in this book is still in the church in particular the senior pastor and his wife. However some names have been changed for their protection. Many wonderful testimonies of healing and deliverance are also recorded in this book.

The Cuenca church had suggested that we teach on the Holy Spirit as they wanted to learn more about life in the Spirit. All the daughter churches were invited to attend the seminar which was to be the closing of their 2-month discipleship training held every Saturday from 9 am to 1 pm. The beautiful church hall could have seated up to 300 people for the Saturday discipleship training and the Sunday service.

Thus it was to our surprise when we saw and heard how the church had adopted a few things that we are doing in HGC such as the DG training with the potential of setting up DG groups (similar to our life groups), DISC which they did on their leaders, members' profile, pre-service prayers, prayers during services and harp & bowl during their prayer meetings!

The few days that we were there, we had indeed experienced a revival, not only for the Cuenca church but also for ourselves!

All our messages and testimonies flowed together as one with the same focus. The healing testimonies were particularly powerful with many responding to the call for healing. People were slain even as we laid hands upon them. They were falling all over the place!

Preaching

Testifying

Many were baptized in the Spirit. Many had tears running down their faces. Some young people wept uncontrollably touched deeply by the Holy Spirit and yielded themselves to receive the gift of tongues. It was my first time praying for people in such numbers to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Praying for people

On the last day after a particularly awesome time in worship and singing in the Spirit, Ps Willy's daughter testified that she saw us having halos around our head. The halos were shining brightly. She said that we have to keep on praying and living in the Spirit in order to keep the halo burning brightly around our heads!

God had indeed done a deep cleansing of His people. The appearance of the halo confirmed that we had been cleansed and made right in our hearts and our minds by the Spirit of Holiness.