Mapandan, Philippines - 2008

I really love the Philippines. The believers are enthusiastic and receptive to God’s word and the spiritual fishing is very good. In this report I want to share with you some of what the Lord did in my recent ministry trip to the city of Mapandan in the Philippines. One of the keys to effective fishing is not just to continually try new lures and exotic bait, but to go to those places where the fish are biting. That is one of the big reasons we at SOGM put so much emphasis upon foreign missions.

  It seems like in most of the meetings that I do there is some part of the ministry that stands out above everything else. Often God seems to put a special blessing upon some aspect of the meetings that causes me to say, “Wow, Lord, that was amazing!” In the Philippines this year the thing that stands out in my mind above everything else was the heavy and rich anointing of the Spirit upon the worship times. The praise and worship we experienced, especially in the evening crusade meetings was truly out of this world. I love good praise and worship and especially worship that carries a heavy presence of the Holy Spirit, and that is exactly what we experienced in the Philippines.

 I always enjoy it when the native singers do some of the songs in English so that I can sing along and participate in the worship. But the anointing was so strong in the worship here that even when they sang in their native language, Tagalong, I was powerfully touched. The United States has been used by God in many ways to lead the nations to greater worship, but we have nothing on the enthusiastic believers in the Philippines!

 As I met with church leaders I taught on the message of our Lord’s return, and how we can minister effectively in these last days. One of the primary truths I try to get across to the pastors is that Bible prophecy can only be understood when we dare to believe God means what He says and says what He means. Too often scholars have tried to turn all prophetic passages into vague, esoteric symbols, which ends up bringing us to the point where no one can really know anything about God’s prophetic plan. One of the things I emphasized in the church leadership conference was that the key to understanding God’s prophetic word is to allow the word to say what it is saying without us trying to force our own interpretations on it. As we see everywhere, the Filipino church leaders were excited to hear the message of our Lord’s return taught as something we can look forward to, and not as something to dread.

 When I preach at crusades my goal is to lift up Jesus Christ. It is the preaching of Christ that draws men and women unto Him. As I preached Christ, we saw what we usually see – people responding to the gospel of Jesus Christ!

 Since my earliest days in ministry I have always been fascinated with the concept of revival. I have consumed book after book on the great revivals of church history and the outstanding revivalists. Reading of men like George Whitefield, Charles Finney, D. L. Moody and others have been a constant source of inspiration to me.

 I have come to see a number of common characteristics and components that are usually present whenever God pours out His Spirit in great measure. These are things I pray for in my meetings, elements that I am constantly looking for. Occasionally we have seen meetings that seemed to approach a state of revival, other times we see a few of these revival elements, and sometimes very little of them. These components of revival are the work of the Holy Spirit – they cannot be faked or artificially created. If God doesn’t not produce them, they will not exist.

 I am not going to tell you that we saw a pure revival in the Philippines. In my mind that criterion was not met. But we did see some of the elements of revival there that were thrilling to experience and greatly encouraging to all of us that had prayed and worked to make these meetings happen. One of those elements was a very strong sense of the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit. It may seem odd to those who have not tasted the Spirit’s presence to think that you can literally feel the Holy Spirit in the atmosphere, but those who have have experienced this have do doubt about it. And in the Philippines there was a very strong manifestation of this holy presence.

 People react differently to the manifestation of the Spirit. When the anointing become very strong some people fall down, some shout, some cry. I tend to be a crier. I am not particularly emotional by nature, but in the presence of the Holy Spirit I become like a little baby. During the worship times the Holy Spirit was moving so richly that I was constantly fighting back tears. At one point I seriously wondered if I was going to be able to preach that night, I was so deeply touched. In fact, after getting back to the United States and reviewing some of the video that we took, I was quickly overcome all over again, and couldn’t help but weep. It is very difficult to be cold and unemotional when the Third Person of the Trinity is powerfully at work.

 Sometimes that presence is very much tangible – you can literally feel something happen in your body. This was the case as I laid hands on the sick. There were times when it was clear that the person receiving the ministry was feeling something very powerful. A young girl came for prayer for her asthma condition. As I prayed for her, it was evident that the Spirit was powerfully touching her. Her final response was to jump for joy and cry at the same time. It is hard to stay completely calm when the Spirit is moving.

 Healings are one those of those revival components that I pray to see in our meetings. The greatest revival in church history, which is what happened to the early church as described in the book of Acts, is replete with healings of all sorts and types. In the Philippines we had one testimony of a healing that took place before prayer for the sick was even offered. One woman came up to testify of how God had healed her during the praise and worship time. She apparently had something like strep throat, and it was extremely painful for her even to swallow. Sensing the presence of the Spirit during the singing, she put her hand on her throat and asked Jesus to heal her, which He instantly did.

 Another lady received instant relief after prayer and the laying on of hands. She came back the following night and testified. She had had a baby five months before. Now most women have soreness of the womb that may last a week or two after having a baby, but this woman had a soreness and pain in her womb that had lasted for five months and showed no signs of ever letting up. After prayer, she felt instant relief and went through the next day without any of that soreness and pain that had been her constant companion.

 Some of the other revival components we saw in the Philippines included the unsaved responding freely to the invitations to receive Jesus and, one of my favorites, the pastors reporting new life in their churches as converts from the crusade meetings found their way to the local churches on Sunday morning.

 Another one of these revival elements that was neat to observe was how, especially on the final night of the crusade, there was a reluctance to close the meetings. Normally at church meetings, you have people checking their watches, eager for the preacher to finish his sermon so they can race out of church and sprint to their favorite restaurant. But the final night of the crusade we had the opposite problem. Nobody seemed to want the meetings to end. After we had had the evangelistic appeal and then I had prayed for the sick, the worship team began to lead out in singing and it almost seemed like everyone was ready for a second service to begin. Many of the teens went to the front area and began to worship like David did of old, singing, jumping, and whirling with their hands lifted high. Perhaps that may sound a bit undignified to you, but I loved it. How I wish all of America’s teens had such enthusiasm for Jesus!

 Once again I want to say thanks so much for your prayers and your support of these missions outreaches. Sometimes I think we in America use the term “life-changing” too easily and too often, to describe everything from a new self-help book to an episode of Oprah Winfrey. But I am not ashamed to use that term to describe what we experience when we go out to the nations of the world, praying for the Spirit’s power and lifting up the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Ultimate Life-changer, and when the Spirit empowers the gospel of Jesus, lives cannot help but be transformed. Your partnership with us is truly changing lives all over the world.

 Jesus once said that the fields were white unto harvest. If that was true in the New Testament days, how much more true is it today, as we live on the verge of the climax of history and the glorious return of our Lord Jesus? May He find us faithfully doing His work and seeking out His lost sheep when He returns.