Ok, some time back I wrote about some of my worst ministry experiences. Today as I was out for a bike ride, it occurred to me that I’d better also write about some of the best ones, just to balance things out. Let me share with you some great experiences I’ve had over the years. I want to share these things, not to glorify myself, but to thank and glorify God for the privilege of being used by Him, and experiencing His power working through me.
Ok, here’s the first one that came to my mind. I’ll never forget this one. I was leading a group of Spanish-speaking discipleship training school students from the first school I ever directed back in 1989. We had been together for the three months of our lecture phase, then launched out on what’s called the outreach phase. We’d only just begun and were working in a place called Gomez Palacios, near the city of Torreon, maybe 600-700 miles south of El Paso. Our contacts there had arranged for us to go into the prison this one afternoon.
The students had practiced a drama over and over, so we were going to present that drama to the assembled inmates, then we’d agreed that I would speak after it was over. The drama was very powerful. In Spanish it was called “Este patente oscuridad” (a title derived from Frank Peretti’s book, This Present Darkness). It had dramatic instrumental music from Michael W. Smith’s rendition called Ashton, based on the same book. You can hear that music here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lGbBKhQYJY
We had one guy dressed as a demon and another as an angel, we had a girl praying on her knees, and there was this terrific swordfight scene between the demon and angel. It was very gripping and all the prisoners were just captivated. The angel and demon were fighting over the girl as she prayed, and when she was fervent, the angel was winning, but when she lagged, the demon began to dominate. It was a great illustration of spiritual warfare and how important it is that we stay active and alert spiritually.
As the drama was going on, I stood in the back behind the team. My heart was pounding as I contemplated going before these hardened criminals and preaching the gospel to them. I didn’t have a planned message, so I was just asking God for guidance, saying, Lord, what should I say? These guys are really watching this, and it’s so dramatic. I don’t want to get up and lose them with something irrelevant or boring. I don’t want to mess up this opportunity!
I felt God speak to me very clearly (rather rare for me). He said, You know what to preach – preach repentance! Right then, I got the story of the Prodigal Son as my text (Luke 15). Well, the drama finished, and the guys were very attentive. I stepped up and began to preach the story of the prodigal son. I told how he’d squandered his father’s wealth and ended up feeding pigs, starving and in rags. Finally, when he’d suffered enough to “hit bottom,” he “came to himself,” decided to return to his father’s house and humble himself, saying he wasn’t even worthy to be his father’s son anymore. He just wanted his father to take him back as a hired servant.
Then I brought it home. I told those inmates that they were living in a pig pen. This place is a pig pen, I shouted. It’s terrible and dark and dirty and you’re living here in misery! And the worst part is, You have brought this upon yourselves! You have made terrible decisions that brought you to this place. My heart was pounding and I was really fired up. I almost couldn’t believe what I was saying, but God’s Spirit was all over me! The thing was, those guys could’ve gotten angry at me, shouted me down, maybe even attacked me and my team. But instead, I think they were humbled by the presence of God.
I told them how the son went home and how his father came running toward him. He welcomed him, embraced him, put a new robe on him, new sandals on his feet and a new ring on his finger. He forgave him and reinstated him as his son, with all privileges! He loved him and was only glad to have him back. I told those guys that God was like that. He knew where they were, what they’d done, how bad it had been. But He loved them and was waiting for them to come to Him. Then I finished the message asking them if any of them wanted to do what the prodigal did. Did they see they had blown it and deserved hell? Did they realize how guilty they were, how they’d squandered their lives? Did they want to ask God’s forgiveness and get a new start? How many would like that, I asked. How many want to get saved today?
I didn’t know if anyone would respond positively at all. Lots of times when I give such a call, nobody does respond, nobody wants to be saved. So I didn’t know what was going to happen. But that day, every single man in that audience raised his hand! I was amazed. So was my team. They were all looking at me wide-eyed!
The thing was, I was so filled with the Spirit, I was really bolder than normal. Instead of telling them all to come up or to bow their heads, I told them I didn't think they understood! I said this isn’t a light thing. You have to really understand, and you have to truly repent. I’m not sure you get that, I said. God won’t accept you if you’re playing around! And I took another 5-10 minutes telling them about real repentance and what it meant, what it would take.
You’d have thought they’d all be discouraged by the end of that. I'd deliberately tried to keep them from coming forward. But I asked again. I said, ok, now, how many of you really want to repent and give your lives to Christ? I thought I would’ve thinned ‘em out a bit, but that didn't happen at all. Once again, every single man raised his hand! I just broke out in a smile and said, alright then. You guys come up here and let’s pray together. I got my team to help me pray with them, and we just had a wonderful time leading those guys to Jesus in that awful prison. People were sincerely praying all over that room, some with tears, some with big smiles.
When we finally finished up and were let out of that place, we rejoiced together and rode back to where we were to spend the night. Every one of us was amazed. We all felt this incredible warm glow, seemingly in our whole being. Nobody expected anything like that. It was just absolutely wonderful, and I’ll never forget it. I so thank and praise God for letting me be His spokesman that day, and for putting into my heart and mind exactly what He wanted me to say. God is so good!
Well, I guess I’ll just tell that one experience for now. Stay tuned, and I’ll share some others in the near future.
Fabulous story! God is great!