Divine Protection Part 2-Protection Through Prayer And Hearing God’s Voice
Today, I’ll share some personal stories of experiencing God’s deliverance from violence through prayer or hearing his voice. Our last post discussed the Bible’s promise that the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him. We also mentioned how the Lord delivered Paul through the prayers of other believers. Today’s stories illustrate those truths.
Fearing the Lord opens our eyes to see things from his perspective. By hearing his voice, we can partner with him and experience protection.
I have probably experienced the Lord’s protection many times without even realizing it. I’ve traveled to dangerous places and lived in the inner city. I’ve had a murder in front of one house and there was a big gang fight down the street from another. My housemates told me about angels in both houses where I lived in the US, and I may have no idea what schemes of violent men have been diverted by the Lord.
Warning In Russia
On my second trip to Russia, I experienced a greater time of walking in God’s glory than I ever had before. I spoke God’s word and shared testimonies with great boldness, and it felt like currents of power and love flowed from my mouth. I often felt God’s love so strongly that I could sense it tangibly in my body. People received healing miracles, and gold dust was even appearing inexplicably.
One morning, I had a vivid dream. A Russian police officer stopped me in the dream and said sternly and angrily, “What are you doing here?” He was very intimidating and cursed or threatened me using some Russian word I didn’t know, but which I thought was profanity.
I woke up and felt that the dream was a spiritual attack meant to intimidate me. It seemed to be a direct threat from Satan, who didn’t like what God was doing in Russia. I reaffirmed my commitment to follow the Lord even if it meant facing danger, and I began to thank God, speak scripture, and rebuke the spirit of intimidation.
I left the apartment and went out to take the metro. As I was walking by Park Pobedy (In St. Petersburg), I saw a rowdy gang of about 20 young men. It looked like they were up to no good. One of them approached me and demanded money in Russian. It sounded like he used the same word that the Russian police officer had spoken to me in my dream. Even though he wasn’t the police officer, it felt like the same spirit that had threatened me in the dream.
I stayed calm and pretended not to understand everything he was saying. I talked to him in a friendly way, as if I didn’t understand that I was being threatened. He finally said in English, “Money, money!” I responded, “Oh, I don’t have money.” He walked back to the gang, and I went on my way.
“He Doesn’t Have A Gun”
Highway robberies are very common in Rio De Janeiro. Once, my wife’s car was in front when criminals held up the highway. A man with a gun was standing in front of her and pointing it at the car. She freaked out, went in reverse, and escaped! That’s not usually a good idea, but thank God that he didn’t shoot at her!
Another time, in a traffic jam, a young guy stopped her with his hand in his shirt like he was holding a gun and demanded to get into her car. He could have hurt her and would probably have taken her car. But the Holy Spirit told her, “He doesn’t have a gun. He is bluffing.” She told him to get in the other side, and as he went to do so, she sped off. If he did have a gun, that would have been a very dangerous thing to do.
Lying Bloody On The Street
When I was 15 years old, I went on a trip with my uncle Burt. My uncle felt like the Lord spoke to him about going to Washington D.C., carrying a wooden cross through the city in both directions, and praying. It was primarily focused on prayer rather than evangelism. He needed someone to go with him.
My parents felt a lot of apprehension about this from the beginning, as if God was warning them of possible danger. But God also told them they needed to let me go. I met three people who were raised from the dead on that trip, received significant prophecies, saw Christians minister healing to my uncle, and grew in faith.
The trip challenged and encouraged me in many ways. When Jesus sent out the disciples to minister, he told them not to bring a purse (Luke 10:4) because the worker is worthy of his wages. My uncle took this seriously, as he had on his trips in Africa. We went with not even enough money in our wallets for gas to get home. Burt said we wouldn’t mention any need to anybody. But throughout the trip, people handed us $20 bills and took us out for dinner, and we returned with more money than we had left with!
We started on a Thursday and went through the city one way that day. I think it was 15 miles. But we were delayed the next day, got a late start, and only got less than halfway through on Friday. A gay pride rally was planned for Saturday in the center of DC, so the city would be full with hundreds of thousands of people. We called home to let our families know that we were going to take one more day to finish our trip.
Uncle Burt had been a missionary in South Africa and had gone to some of the surrounding countries doing evangelism. His wife is Afrikaans. She was not used to fretting about him, even though he had often gone to very dangerous places in Africa. She’s not a worrywart. But she had a vision of both of us lying dead on the street, with blood all around. She called my mom, and my mom felt the same urgent concern in her spirit.
Once, my family lost our housing in a day, unexpectedly, and had to move immediately. My mom had already packed a month before that because the Lord showed her that we were going to move before there was any natural sign of it. In the same way, I believe God warned my mom and aunt about what could happen. They weren’t just worrying for no reason.
My aunt and my mom prayed fervently for the Lord to deliver us from evil. They contacted many people, telling them about the vision and asking them to pray for us.
The next day, the city was packed. The police had closed off several city blocks. My uncle tried to pass under the police tape with the cross on the sidewalk beside the fence. The Police stopped him. He tried to reason with them like a good African, but this wasn’t Africa! The only way to go through was to get tickets into the event. I suggested going a few blocks out of the way and going around the event, but Uncle Burt was convinced that our mission, as the Lord had spoken to him, was to go through the center of the city. He finally bought us tickets for the gay pride parade. I think we waited for about 4 hours just to get in!
Talking to the people around us was quite interesting. There were lots of TV cameras. One lady was hiding from the camera because she was so embarrassed to be seen at the event. People at home saw us on TV with the big 6 by 12 foot wooden cross.
Some people were enraged at our presence and mocked us. I suppose that they thought we’d come to protest the event. They didn’t realize that we were just there because our trip had been delayed! Others assumed we were there to promote the compatibility of homosexuality and Christianity. A lady hosting a booth was so happy when she saw us and tried to give us “Gay for God” stickers. When my uncle politely explained that we weren’t homosexuals, she was taken aback and upset!
We didn’t spend a lot of time at the event because we were just passing through on our prayer mission. We spent more time waiting to get in. But the rest of the city was still filled with people who were there to attend the gay pride parade. Although we encountered people who were very angry and aggressive towards us, nothing happened. I’m convinced that God sent angels to calm the anger of people who may have harmed us and to prevent them from hurting us.