Tuesday, August 22, 2006It's time to share what happened Friday evening, August 4th , during the weekly healing service at Gateway Christian Fellowship in New Haven, Connecticut. Before I do (and before you do), heed the timely word of caution that my co-steward of the Boston Noon Hour, Alex Canavan, had for me. Resist the temptation to amplify or embellish, or try to make anything happen next. As Oswald Chambers so wisely advised in My Utmost for His Highest, sit under the inspiration of the vision, and wait for the Lord to do whatever He is going to do.
Saturday, I drove down to Gateway, to interview Pastor Brian Simmons about what had happened in his church. He'd been in Europe at the time, but one of his associate pastors was present, along with about 75 regulars. Pastor Brian put it in perspective. Last fall, Dutch Sheets had a prophetic dream. In it, he was preaching at Gateway, and God was giving him a three-point sermon: Miracles are coming to this house. They are coming through covenant. Baptize them into the miraculous. And the miracle that would presage the Awakening would come to a young person at Gateway.
Dutch called Chuck Pierce, his friend and fellow prophet, with whom he'd traveled to all fifty states in the past year's two forerunners telling of the imminent Awakening. He related the dream to Chuck, because he was in it, too, there at the church in New Haven with Dutch. The dream witnessed to Chuck, who recalled that several months earlier, God had told him that the coming year [2006] would be His year for New England. When you see the weather change in winter and the sixty-mile-per-hour winds, you will know that the Awakening wind is come to New England.
Dutch contacted Gateway's pastors, Brian and Candy Simmons, who invited him and Chuck to come share with their congregation. They arrived on January 19th the day after a storm front had roared through New Haven with unprecedented force. The headline in the Register that morning was "BLOWN AWAY!", with the story reporting record-setting 69-mile-per-hour winds.
I remembered hearing a CD of what Dutch had shared with his own congregation back in Colorado Springs, about his visit to New Haven. Lord, he'd asked God at Gateway, why this church? Because of the name. Years ago He had told Dutch: You must turn the prayer movement toward the northeast. You must get the northeast gate open. It is the womb of the nation, and until the womb is open, I cannot birth what I want to birth for the rest of the nation. The beginnings of what I do will start in the northeast .
Then he'd asked the Lord, why this city? Brian had helped him there. New Haven (or New Heaven) was founded by two men who'd come with a dream to build a covenant city, patterned after the Tabernacle. They had covenanted with God, with one another, and with all who'd gone before them. And now Dutch understood what God had meant in his dream sermon, when He said the miracles were coming through covenant.
So what exactly happened? I interviewed Shelli Baker, an evangelist from Branson, Missouri, with a heart for revival, who had led the healing service at Gateway on Friday, August 4th. Having been at the Benny Hinn services at Boston Garden the previous Thursday and Friday, she and her team dared to pray that God would bless their service at Gateway with as strong a healing anointing as He had the Garden.
Apparently He did. When she prayed for individuals, her hands were so hot that it felt like she had curling irons for fingers. The last person she prayed for was a young man who had been a regular at Gateway for several years. He was well known to the congregation and to Shelli, as he had been brought by a friend to previous healing services she had led there. He had a sweet spirit, but he was a deaf mute, who communicated by writing on a notepad. He had been deaf and dumb since his birth, 21 years before.
In her heart, Shelli heard God's direction. She was to put her fingers into the young man's ears. When she did, the young man recoiled, as if he'd received an electric shock. Grabbing his notepad from his friend, he scribbled, "Fire in my neck!"God then told Shelli to command the ears to open. When she did, the left one opened. The congregation crowded in closer.
Now God told her to do what Jesus had done: Cast out the dumb and deaf spirit, a spirit of infirmity. [Mark 9:25, Luke 13:11] She did. (Later the young man reported that at that moment he saw the devil leaving the building and angels come in.)
God told Shelli to put her hand on the young man's throat and command it to open. She did. The young man uttered a high-pitched guttural sound as the first sound he'd ever made. Then, syllable by syllable, she led him in pronouncing his first word: Hal - le - lu - jah!
The congregation went wild with joy. But God was not finished; the right ear was still closed. Now Shelli explained that everything had begun when God said, "Let there be light." Or in Hebrew, simply, "Light: be!" She asked the congregation to join with her in praying "Hearing: be!" Over and over they cried it in unison, ever louder, until the young man's right ear opened.
The congregation was ecstatic. It took a long time for things to calm down, but eventually the people went home, rejoicing. Only a few lingered in the hospitality room, one of whom was the young man. He pointed to Shellia's harp, wanting her to play it. He'd seen her, but never heard her. She agreed, and as she played, the Lord filled the young man with His Spirit, and he began to sing with her in a new prayer language on key, with perfect pitch.
Thats what happened. In my heart God seemed to confirm that it was the beginning of the public events of the Awakening that would become the greatest outpouring of His Spirit since the Day of Pentecost. As you have been telling others, you will now be so busy you will not have time to listen to anything but me, read anything but my Word, do anything but what I specifically call you to do.
Then today is the day?
This is the day that I have made, and you will rejoice and be glad in it.
-David Manuel
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