At times during their education Filipinos are asked to write an essay entitled “My Most Unforgettable Experience.” There are also unforgettable experiences of a spiritual kind, and they can arrive unexpectedly. “Suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty rushing wind…” (Acts 2:2) The baptism in the Holy Spirit experienced by those waiting in the “upper room” on the Day of Pentecost caught the waiting disciples unawares. They would go on to have more amazing experiences, but that first outpouring of the Spirit would have been the most unforgettable one!
My first experience of such an outpouring was during a Pentecostal meeting in a meeting in Melbourne one Sunday. Not long after being saved I was listening to the preacher when suddenly I felt a strong urge to slip off the seat and onto my knees. Halfway down my mind took over and I sat back up – and as I did the entire congregation of about 150 people went down at the same moment – all of them speaking in tongues! The experience was quite unexpected, because the reply of the pastor’s daughter when I asked, “Does this happen often?” was “Not as often as we would like!” Her eyes revealed how awestruck she was at what had happened.
In the late 1970s I was an assistant pastor in a Brisbane church that was a spiritual powerhouse. It was not uncommon to record 100 decisions for Jesus weekly. I baptized thirty to forty new converts in water most weeks. The atmosphere was thick with the anointing of the Spirit, and our people expected that anything could happen anytime – and it very often did.
Time after time, young men told me they came to church to mock what was happening from the rear but somehow found themselves out the front weeping without knowing how they got there! An exclamation often heard those days was “Church was never like this!” Christians came from far and wide to the meetings. People ‘phoned in to tell how they’d been saved or healed while watching our TV program. Unexpected experiences were not unusual in that exciting church!
Some years later, members of a Christian youth group I had preached to at a camp on the Sunshine Coast suddenly fell to their knees one by one, weeping over their spiritual condition. Most of the 100 or so mature-age youth present were inconsolable. The unexpected arrival of the Spirit of God brought a holiness that changed their lives.
The next time I experienced a spiritual visitation was on the island of Borneo. I had only just finished preaching in a large church when God’s Spirit swept into the building like a cyclonic wind. The 300 Christians present then began wailing as one. Earlier in the meeting the deacons had repented in front of the people. The visitation that night and the spiritual awakening that began swept through the island of Borneo for seven years. When God’s Spirit arrives suddenly and unexpectedly, most people who are present have an unforgettable experience.
The phenomenon took place again a few years later in the Philippines. One night after preaching on revival in Metro Manila, nearly all of the 200 or so young people present in the meeting began to weep and to cry out for God’s forgiveness. Few spoke in tongues but all exhibited heartfelt repentance. Many were down on their knees, sobbing. During a later seminar in Manila, more than 43 staff of an organization were baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues when I laid hands on them. The event changed the mission from an evangelical one to a Pentecostal one.
On another occasion in the Philippines, I had just finished preaching to a group of about forty bible college students, when suddenly they began to fall to the floor. No student was injured, even though the floor was concrete. The unexpected visitation brought with it deep, heartfelt repentance.
Years later, I witnessed the phenomenon in churches in the United Kingdom, initially on one of the Channel Islands and then in meetings throughout the southwest of England. People were not emotionally moved but deeply touched by a sovereign move of the Spirit. The preaching certainly prepared the hearts of the people, but in most cases the move of the Spirit of God was as extraordinary as it was unexpected. Such has often been the case in the history of the church with an unexpected arrival of the Spirit of God.
The Pentecost outpouring recorded in Act 2 was a spiritual event of the first order, and set a precedent for other unexpected outpourings of the Spirit. When the Spirit of God later “fell” on the household of Cornelius, all present spoke in unknown languages (Acts 10:44-46).
When outpourings of a similar kind took place in church history, most of them overflowed the doctrinal and denominational divisions of the day, and brought God’s people together. When a creek floods the water rises above dividing fences, and ducks that were separated soon swim together.
If you think that unexpected experiences are more often witnessed by those who minister around the globe among various people groups you are right. But the more we build a spirit of expectancy in our churches here at home, the sooner they will take place. Right now you might be thinking, What would happen if the faith of people grew to such a degree that in every meeting they expected the unexpected? The answer is anything and everything! Are you expecting it?