Real Life Illustrations of Being in the Presence of God

Many years ago on a dark night on the southern New Jersey Turnpike I cried out, “Help me Jesus!  I don’t know what to do!”

Instantly the car filled with an overpowering presence.  I could not move.  My hands were frozen to the position they had been on the steering wheel.   My arms did not move.  I stared straight ahead, but I really did not see the road or anything.

God had come into the car.  Instantly he had answered my call.  The air was intense, electric.  It was as if a giant hand were on my back, from my shoulders down to the end of my spine, and it was hugging me.  It was warm, and pulsating.  The feeling of love in that car was overwhelming.  And for perhaps thirty minutes it continued.  I know it was thirty minutes, because when I suddenly was able to move again, I looked down at the odometer and I had gone thirty miles.  God had been driving the car.  Certainly not me.

The anointing came that night, and the gifts of the spirit.  Gifts like the gifts of healing and miraculous works and prophecy and faith and more.

Following that night God came often, and began guiding me specifically.  He began giving out assignments, and as I would do them he gave more.  Gradually they moved into the major statements I refer to as the call on my life. 

That was God in the car.  Whether Jesus was sitting there beside me I do not know, for I could not turn my head. 

It was overwhelming.  I had had a direct, enormous encounter with God.  Now I had had a couple amazing things happen to me before, like the intercession of the angel in the car accident in Beverly Hills when a giant truck fell on our car.  Or a time many years ago in Houston when suddenly a voice spoke a prophetic word into my heart and mind, one I was shocked by and didn’t understand completely.  But this experience in the car was life-changing. 

I had encountered God.  He was there.  He was real.  No going back into the old standard life with church on Sunday for an hour but no real spiritual thoughts otherwise.  I knew first hand God was and is real and that he answers prayer and that he communicates now, today, with us. The Holy Spirit had come in force and power.  It was as Ephesians 1:3-4 says.  I had been marked in Christ with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing my inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession.

I was like the born again, spirit filled Christians of the early Christian centuries.  They willingly would go to their deaths rather than deny Jesus.  Why?  Because they knew God was real.  They had met him.  They had the Holy Spirit.

The world today likes to refer to some Christians as fundamentalists, and they deride those who just won’t let their Biblical principles be moved.  But you see, the world doesn’t know God.  Those who do can’t be moved and won’t give up their faith, which is absolute.

You can read more about this encounter in the car on our web site.  Just punch the testimony button in the menu column.

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Hearing from God is wonderful, life-changing!  A word, a sentence.  A verse of scripture suddenly coming alive as you read it, made real by the quickening power of the Spirit.  All this changes a person instantly.  It is worth more than gold.  Far more.  Just one such incident can lift a person high for days and weeks, and drive him forward in life.  And the more received, the further the person goes.

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The Lord speaks at diverse times and incidents, often of his own choosing and not while you are specifically sitting quietly in prayer.  Sometimes while you are walking down the street or working on something else.

A few years back I was attacked horribly by the evil side.  As we stepped out ever further in ministry, I had experienced attacks from the devil or his demons in various forms, and we had learned to apply the truths of God, to stand on the word, to cast out demons.  All that.  But this was much more.  Some of you know about it.  The attack was physical and direct and severe.  The pain was enormous.  There were moments I was not sure I would be here longer.  Several prayer warriors prayed and interceded.  Help came from the most unusual sources.  For several weeks I was dreadfully weak, so weak I did not even shave.  And I even conducted meetings unshaven, but the word of God coming through was strong.  I learned a great deal through all this.  One thing I learned is that someone in great pain and distress cannot pray, other than shouting out help me Jesus and short phrases like that.  The pain is so intense.

So a couple months after this happened I had just finished a time of reading the Bible and praying at home, and I walked into our kitchen.  Suddenly I was aware of the presence of the Lord on the other side of the counter that separates our kitchen from our dining area.  And he spoke:  “I’m never going to lose you, John.”  He said.  My eyes filled with tears.  My whole body was overcome by his presence.  My eyes are filling with tears as I write this even now.

And I said, “What did I do wrong, Lord?”

He replied, “Nothing.”

That was it.  No more words.  I have never forgotten that conversation.  I learned too that attacks come in this life from the evil side even if I did nothing wrong, and I needed to learn as much as possible as to how to protect myself and my wife and family and friends and partners and so on.  And to fight evil.  God has shown me much in that area.

But you see, he just began talking as I walked into the kitchen.

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Especially for a period of a few years some time back, God would speak to me in the middle of the night.  I would wake up about 3 or 4 am, or maybe 5, and I would go into another room and sit in my favorite chair with my favorite Bible and begin reading.  Usually I read Isaiah.  I have found that God comes often when I read Isaiah.  I started one night and read through the ninth chapter when he suddenly came.  In such times I have found he is sometimes open to conversation.  Not only does he pass on something he wants me to know, but I can ask a question.  Even about seemingly lighter matters.

One night we were talking about healing, and I said something about his healing in the temple, his healing everyone.  “Not everyone,” he said.  And in a minute he said, “the Pharisees,”  and I knew instantly he was referring to their religious spirit that blocked the healing of some, a situation we have encountered in various places, those who pay attention to man’s religious rules and ideas of how things should be rather than to being open to God’s truths and his presence and actions.

That particular night for some reason the subject of golf came up, and I remember Jesus saying, “It’s a silly game.”

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A last example of the Lord speaking to me:  We were sitting in a ministry meeting in Charlotte.  A large crowd was present, and a famous minister was teaching on the Holy Spirit.  Suddenly I heard the voice, “What are you doing here, John?”  and I realized I should not have come.  I don’t really seek out such sessions anymore, unless directed by God to do so.  My neck was hurting some at the meeting, and the Lord put his hand on my neck.  I said something about his hand being rough, and he said,” you don’t know how many times I hit that hand.”  Of course Joseph had been a carpenter, and no doubt Jesus had worked as a carpenter for years and had hit his hand many times!

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God is real.  Jesus is real.  The Holy Spirit is real.  The Bible is true.  The Lord is returning soon.  He has called me to preach good news to the poor, to heal the broken hearted, to give sight to the blind, and to tell people he is coming soon.  He is.  He really is.  He also has called me to write, to give my testimony, to have a prayer, preaching and healing ministry with my wife, and to feed his sheep. 

Do you know him?  Have you been in his presence?  He tells us we will find him when we seek him with all our heart. 

When you have a personal encounter with the Lord, everything else in the world recedes in importance.  It is as if everything else becomes shadows, and God is in brilliant color.  And you realize just how insignificant all the issues of the secular world are.

Don’t miss the Lord.  Don’t let Jesus pass you by.  He is coming very, very soon.
 

                                                                                                                                                                                           Copyright © 2013 by John Newlin

WHY DIE BEFORE YOUR TIME?

Recently I went to my high school class reunion.  I admit, I thought long about not going, but in the end there I was.  It turned out to be much more enjoyable than I had anticipated – seeing old acquaintances even if I didn’t recognize them at first, looking over old pictures, and also knowing that it would end, that I would be leaving in a few hours.

But there was one troubling thing.  I had known a few of the classmates had died over the years.  Every five years or so the group that puts on the reunion has an update of those who have passed on.  As I thought about going to the reunion my mind drifted to really close friends who have departed this life.  Of my really close friends, four in high school and one in both high school and college, three were now deceased.  That’s 60 %! 

And as I prepared to go, I also thought about the boy my age who lived on one side of my home and the girl who had lived on the other, also my age.  For some reason the girl had been coming to my mind for weeks.  When we got to the reunion the man who had been the boy next door was sitting at the next table, and it was good to see him.  But then I had a shock.  In looking through the paper materials, I saw that the girl who had grown up beside me on the other side of our house had died two months before!  Now I know why she kept coming to my attention!

So in my life, sixty per cent of my close high school friends and half of my neighbor friends are now dead.  And I’m not really that old!!!

In our class perhaps fifty out of a class of over 400 are now deceased!  What is going on?  Yes, years have passed.  But these people all died many years before the modern average life expectancy of an American.  A couple may have been killed in a war, or a car accident, but not most.

Why did they die before their time?  Why?  Was it before their time?  Well, I can’t answer that for all, but I am reasonably certain the answer is yes for most.

The best answer I can come up with is that most of these people just do not know what God has provided for them to be well and healthy.  They do not know how to protect themselves against the attacks of the evil one, and they do not know how to receive God’s great gift of healing.  When something terrible attacks them such as hearing a dire prognosis from the medical world, they readily accept that is what they have and in general thus they are acquiescing to their fate.  Oh, some do fight vigorously against disease using the medical world tools, and no doubt some are successful that way.  But that is not what most do.  And so many talented lovely people are no longer with us.  I can’t talk to my childhood friend, the girl next door, Emmy and ask about her life, her family, what happened.  I can’t talk to my good friend Joe and ask why he died so young.  I can’t speak with Stanley and try to learn what happened.  Oh, I do know about John.  He got hit by a car in Atlanta while crossing a street. 

Well, I have spent years of my life teaching and preaching about the fullness of Jesus and all he has done for us and all we are in him.  There have been wonderful healings – a two year old with a dreadful brain tumor that major hospitals had given up on, a woman on her way into heart surgery, another baby born with a lung too short that just grew to full size, a woman whose arteries suddenly were unclogged, and so on.  Many who have come to our meetings or services have been healed.  And others watching on television or over the web have learned and grown in Christ.  But still the great majority of the population does not know the power of the gospel.  They treat it all as a historical story, something to be read and considered like reading about Caesar or Washington.  Yes, they say they believe in Jesus, and I think in some way many do.  But they do not “know” him nor know the truth of the Bible.  And the church services in so many places on Sunday morning are over precisely at noon, fitting the long-scheduled format.  No time for the Holy Spirit to minister, to heal, to comfort, to guide. 

At many such places the sick list is recited and prayers are requested.  Some in front may even pray for healing by saying “if it is God’s will.”  Of course it is God’s will to be well!  Unless it is your time to go be with him, it is his will for you to be well!  I’ve taught about that so many times, with scriptures that make the truth inescapable.  You can watch our programs on the web site or listen to our CDs or read the newsletters.  Healings and miracles happen today just as in the days of Jesus and the disciples. 

But our population continues to age, and in general to fall away from God – noticeably for those truly in revolt against the Lord, and quietly and perhaps even more horribly, discreetly for those who still don’t really know who he is or what he did for them even though they say they are Christians.  They just don’t know all Jesus has done for them and that is available to them.  They don’t know and they don’t know how to receive or how to fight against evil, and they suffer and go quietly into the night.

The title above is from Ecclesiastes 7:17. 

It is still true.  Why die before your time? 

AN URGENT WARNING FOR RIGHT NOW!

This is an urgent message to all believers everywhere.  We are living in tense, unpleasant times.  We are living in the days that actually count down to the return of Jesus, in other words, the last days.  And so much is happening.  Yes, people are coming to Christ, especially in areas of the world that have not known the Lord.  But great numbers are falling away as well.  The Western world is sliding away.

You do not even have to be a believer to know things are woefully wrong today.  A huge percentage of people in the US, the leading nation and most sophisticated nation of the world for decades, believe the country is on the wrong track, that their children’s lives will be worse than theirs, and so forth.

For those who are true believers in Jesus Christ, you know there is much more to the story.  We are near his return.  As we near that date, many things happen, and I’ve written about so much of this.  You can find past writings on our web site or my blog, or listen to our CDs or watch our television programs on the subject.

I am writing this now, today, because the pressure is up.  We have seen in our lives and in the ministry ever growing pressure.  I’ve said before anyone stepping out for God is sure to be attacked by the evil side.  Certainly that is true.  Serious ministers of God know that is true.  We’ve had all sorts of attacks over the years – financial, physical, and otherwise.  And constantly there are the temptations the devil brings – “you can’t really do that, you don’t have the funds, nobody is listening, on and on.”  Sometimes the temptations and the words are much worse than that of course.  And the attacks are very real.

Well, now, I want to warn you to the best of my abilities to warn.  The devil and his forces are pouring out their efforts in these last days.  And one area they are really active in is the one Jesus first warned his disciples of in Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21 when they asked about signs of his return.  What is it?  DECEPTION!!!!

Watch that you are not deceived!!!!!!  That was the Lord’s first reply when the disciples asked him about his return.

While we have been attacked in so many ways and have been victorious in Christ in so many ways over the years, we have now recognized clearly an enormous increase in deception attacks.  This past year and a half there have been four major incidents of this, two involving deceptive “ministers” of all things to flat out deception on the part of a larger organization with which we were dealing and to another concerning an amazing offer to fund our ministry to a high level (This does not count lesser such deceptive activities, hopefully all of which we have recognized.).   In the course of this we have endeavored to be wiser and wiser, to ask for words of wisdom and knowledge and greater discernment every time we have had to make decisions.  But it is difficult. When we began to realize all that was happening in these deceptive attacks, I spoke with an executive of a friendly giant ministry that you all are probably familiar with.  I asked him about another opportunity – not one of the four deceptions mentioned.  A major Christian television network had offered us a prime morning broadcast time, and he warned me about that network, citing their withdrawal from it.  An agent we have worked with for some time also gave a warning.

I’m not speaking of every little falsehood.  I’m speaking of serious deception that can wreck what you are doing, or misdirect your life.  And I warn you now to be alert, to be awake. 

The gift of discernment is a great help here, and all the other gifts of the Holy Spirit.  So too seeking wise counsel – the Bible even advises of this.

This deception is being poured out so fast that we consider every one that suddenly appears in our path with an attractive offer, or seeking involvement that appears something we should do.  Because we have experienced and know to consider – is this real?

Some time back we recorded the CD Fighting Evil to guide you in how to protect yourself every day.  It goes over the tools we have in doing so, the Biblical tools, and advises on how to live and prepare every day.  You should get and listen to that if you have not.  Just request it from us.  And watch our television programs on this subject.

Related to this, you do indeed in Jesus’ name have the power to cast out evil spirits, demons.  Jesus said his believers would do that.  If you realize you are being attacked or tempted by such, take a stand in Jesus’ name.  The devil and his staff cannot win against such.  If you are a true believer.

But I say now, you must know who you are in Christ and what the Lord has enabled you to do.  Taking on the devil or his evil spirits with no knowledge or inappropriate knowledge is a prescription for disaster.  No one can survive against the devil without the Lord and what he has enabled us to do.

These deceptions come by people who look like angels of light.  They talk like angels of light. They come with glowing opportunity, with scripture and warmth.  And smiles.  And they will destroy you.

And these deceptions are not just on a grand national level but on a personal one- on-one level in your daily life.  I don’t want you to think this just happens to others, or to larger groups.

And that is the world in which we live today.  I have spent years of my life trying to warn people of all that is happening and is coming.  I didn’t choose this role.  The Lord chose me, as he likes to remind me from time to time.  Thank God he does so.  And so I do this. 

Consider yourselves warned.  Pray about new contacts, pray about persons you might work with or invite over, pray about any new opportunities or endeavors you are considering.  Get the Lord’s advice.  Listen to the Holy Spirit.  Listen!  Any doubt?  Don’t act. 

Keep Your Eyes on Jesus!

                                                                                                                                    (January 2013)

                                                                                                              Copyright © 2013 by John Newlin.

Some thoughts about activities to pursue now - January 4, 2013

Clearly we are living in the last days before the return of the Lord, and that has led me to muse about many things (aside from the formal newsletters and other documents I send out from time to time or post on the ministry web site.)  Lately, I've been thinking about just what the activities of a believer in Jesus should be as he/she prepares to meet the Lord.  Here are a few for you to consider.  No doubt there are many more.  And of course for each of us he has his specific priority order we should seek out.

·         Studying his Word

·         Prayer

·         Spending time with those close to us

·         Sharing the gospel message with those who don’t know (and asking God to arrange the best occasions to do so)

·         Making sure we are in a righteous relationship with God.  Jesus took our unrighteousness so we might be the righteousness of God in him.  We should deal with any unrighteousness in our lives right now.  Ask forgiveness for any area you need to pray that for, and forgive anyone you need to.  And obey the Lord's commands.

·         Any amends to make?  Well, get busy.

·         Walk on the beach.  Take a mountain trip.  Look at God’s creation.

·       Yes, you have to continue with the daily activities of life.  They don’t just go away.  Cleaning the house.  Cooking and eating.  Continuing to work in your jobs.  Just don’t make these your top priorities in life, unless God has so assigned that.

·         Perhaps seek out those you have not seen in a long while.

·         Go to a fiftieth reunion, or a twenty-fifth or tenth.

·         Take that trip you have long wanted to take, if possible and will not put you in dire financial straits.

·         Any particular ministries or programs you would like to attend?  Well, why not do so?

·         Any books you really wanted to read, any movies you really wanted to see?  Well?

·       Time – spend time just breathing and sitting, walking, looking about, living, not really doing anything by world standards but just living, keeping your eyes on all about.  See what is around you with all your senses.  See with spiritual eyes as well as physical eyes.

·       Prepare for those left behind.  There will be some.  Who will come to your home, handle your affairs, distribute your stuff?  You might want to write a will, leave some type of document directing what you hope will happen.  Maybe also leave some really good teaching CDs or DVDs that those left behind might find and listen to or watch (regarding the Lord, his return, the seven years coming up).  We actually produced one in the ministry that you might leave behind.