A Time Before Time Began

In 1985 we were busily and more or less happily pastoring the Foursquare Church in Davis, California. We say "more or less" because a day job was still a necessity with four young children to feed and clothe and a small congregation of mostly college students. We had started that church from scratch in the latter half of 1980. And ok, so the title of this post is a little misleading, but it seems like another lifetime ago, and it was before the time this blog has recorded heretofore.

That little church was Foursquare in every sense of the word. We had been licensed to preach the Foursquare Gospel in Davis and were diligent about that business. We believed and taught that Jesus is the healer of our bodies, the savior of our souls, the baptizer with the Holy Spirit and our soon coming King. We still believe He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8) We think we even believed all that in our spirits, but somewhere in there a switch had not been thrown or something.

We saw people being born again and beginning their new life journeys. We baptized new believers in water several times a year. There had been a smattering of physical healings, but nothing on a regular basis. Then as He sometimes does, God began to work sovereignly, behind the scenes, to rock our world in a very positive way.

We had made arrangements to attend the annual Foursquare convention in Los Angeles. It would be good to get away and to see some people we had not seen in some time. We could also stay with relatives so the cost would not be prohibitive and it would be good to see them as well. We do not recall if we knew who the keynote speaker for the convention was before we registered, nor does it really matter. It was John Wimber--at that time a man at the pinnacle of a career which included leading the Vineyard churches, teaching at Fuller Seminary, writing, and actively involving himself in what he called "power evangelism". Power evangelism, as we understand it, is the demonstration of the Kingdom of God, on earth, in signs and wonders, for the purpose of bringing people to Jesus.

John Wimber delivered an excellent teaching on physical healing and it's availability to The Church today. Well that was 24 years ago, but if Hebrews 13:8 is still good, the time would not seem to be relevant. At the end of his message, he called for anyone who wanted to participate in a healing time to come to the platform. I was in the first balcony in Angelus Temple, toward the front. The exit is in the back. I believe I was the second or third person to reach the platform. I was excited to be part of that ministry. John then called for anyone who needed a physical healing to come to the platform. He then told us to wait until the Holy Spirit showed us who to minister to in prayer. The end result of that is that I prayed for and watched as a woman, with tears in her eyes, stood erect for the first time in a long time. She was healed from a spinal condition that had kept her slightly bent forward.

Just a few weeks after we returned from the convention, we received an unsolicited invitation in the mail to have dinner at a restaurant fifty miles or so from Davis. The invitation came from a group calling themselves, "Friends of Deliverance". They were providing a complimentary dinner to introduce pastors and other interested people to the need for deliverance within The Church. Some note on the invitation linked the group with a Foursquare pastor we knew in the town where the meeting was being held. We made a telephone call to be sure this was not some kind of weird group and were assured by the pastor these were good people who simply wanted to expose more people to the deliverance ministry. Besides, they were buying dinner so we felt we had nothing to lose by joining them. We found what they had to say very interesting, encouraging, and even inspiring. Our sole, previous experience with a demon had not ended well. By the time we left that meeting we had a better handle on the deliverance ministry. I remarked to Judi on the trip home that I was pretty sure the Lord would not have been teaching us about healing and deliverance if He did not plan to have us doing something in that area.

Within the next several months we actually led our first successful deliverance session. We saw virtually everyone in the church who had physical problems receive their healings. Time and space, and the Holy Spirit, will not allow us to go into any further detail about all those things.


Sometime, I am going to have to rehearse for you, my call to the ministry. Until then, let me just tell you it came via a word from the Holy Spirit to my spirit from Luke 4:18-19. Verse 19 says, "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." Without a detailed teaching on this verse, let us say for now we are talking about a time when God is pouring out His favor on His people. This is not necessarily a literal 365 day year. I am writing this post, on this day, to tell anyone who will listen, you can have the Lord's favor on your life right now. All you have to do to appropriate it for yourself is to do as Jesus said. "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." (Matthew 7:7) It is time. If you need help with that feel free to give us a call or send us an email. You can even post a comment and perhaps help others too. God bless.