LOS CICLOS HISTORICOS DEL PENSAMIENTO Y LA PRAXIS

convinced of all, he is judged of all:

25 And thus are the secrets of his heart made

manifest; and so falling down on his face he will

worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.

Here, in this passage, believers have come together. The unbeliever might or might not come in. If he does, the manifestation of God's Presence in the church is to

be so great that he will fall down before Him.

The closest thing I ever saw to this kind of meeting was in 1939 and 1940 in a little church I pastored in Farmersville, Texas.

This congregation was Pentecostal. As their young pastor, I had recently come into Pentecost from the Baptists.

I would say that in 1939 and 1940, I probably didn't preach more than a half a dozen times on a Sunday morning; we had believers' meetings.

I came into Pentecost in 1939 and in those days, people thought you were backslidden if you didn't have a testimony meeting every service. We had a move of the Spirit in those days that the modern-day Charismatic knows nothing about. But we've got to get back to it.

In this church, primarily only our own people— believers—came on Sunday morning. Ordinarily, I'd just sit down on the platform and say to the congregation, "I'm going to turn this meeting over to the Holy Spirit. Whatever the Holy Spirit has given you, just get up and give it." Of course, if the meeting didn't run right, I was still responsible for it, and I'd get up and stop it or get it back into the right channel.

First Corinthians 14:26 says, "... when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm ... doctrine ... tongue ... revelation ... interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying." How many believers are supposed to have something from the Holy Spirit? All of them! Of course, this will work better in a small church than it will in a large one. "... EVERY ONE of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done

unto edifying" (v. 26).

I would tell my congregation, "Whatever the Holy Spirit has given you—give it. If the Holy Spirit has given you a song, just start a chorus. If the Holy Spirit has given you tongues for the whole body, speak it out. If the Holy Spirit gives you the interpretation, go ahead and interpret. If you have a prophecy, prophesy. Whatever the Holy Spirit gives you—give it."

Remember, prophecy is inspired utterance. Because prophecy is speaking forth, there is an element of prophecy in testimonies. In these believers' meetings, people would get up and testify, and although they would sometimes start off speaking in the natural, they'd get inspired and their testimony would bless everyone. As they spoke, something would just go out over the whole crowd.

For instance, there was a man in the congregation who was very timid. Sometimes the Spirit of God would come upon him and with no music and no singing, he'd just get up and start dancing. You talk about dancing! It blessed everyone. And with no music! All we had was a piano in those days. Someone would start singing a chorus and the pianist would pick it up and start playing along.

We had three sections of seats in our little auditorium. There would be times when the whole congregation just sat quietly, reverencing and waiting on God. Sometimes the Spirit of God would move in such a way that with no pianist or any music at all, the people in one section would simultaneously jump up and start dancing all at once just like someone was leading them! There was no music and there was no one leading them, but they'd all start dancing just like some Unseen One was orchestrating them.

I'd sit on the platform, grinning and watching the Holy Spirit move. Then they'd all stop simultaneously and another section would get up and they'd start dancing with no one directing them. Then they'd all sit down again just like some Unseen One was directing them. The Holy Spirit was doing the directing! Then the people in the center section would all jump up and dance for a while and they'd all sit down at the same time. Sometimes, someone would get up and give a message in tongues. Most of the time, I'd interpret because I was on the platform and people could hear better that way. Once in a while, I'd encourage someone else to interpret the message.

God moved in some of the most unusual ways in those believers' meetings. But it was because we had real worship in our services—true worship. And we were careful to keep our worship in the Spirit and to reverence God and not get in the flesh. We didn't put on some kind of a demonstration, but there was a demonstration of the Spirit—there is a difference! We are not to put on a demonstration, but we are to allow the demonstration of the Spirit. Do you see the difference?

None of the services were alike. In some services, the Holy Ghost so came into the room and filled it with His Presence that nobody moved, nobody said a word. You were afraid to move or speak because a holy awe gripped the crowd.

We had no nursery. The babies were in their mothers' arms or asleep on the floor or on a bench. Little children were sitting by their mothers. Yet as we sat in total silence for an hour and a half, not a baby cried, not a child moved.

carry that Presence with you for months and months. Once in a while some unsaved person would come in. I remember one of those times. We were all sitting silently in God's Presence, when from the platform, I saw the back door of the auditorium open and a man come inside.

This fellow usually dropped his wife off at church on Sunday morning. Then he would go to an illegal gambling dive in town. He would come back around noon to pick up his wife because we were usually through by that time.

He told us later what transpired that day. He drove into the parking lot, rolled down the car window, and didn't hear anything. So he got out of the car and walked up to a window. We didn't have stained glass— we just painted the bottom pane of glass. He couldn't see inside, so he put his ear up against the window, but he couldn't hear anything.

He said, "I thought, Perhaps the rapture has taken place and everyone is gone! The cars are all here."

He went back and sat in his car. An hour went by. It was one o'clock by that time and he hadn't heard anything.

We were all sitting in the Presence of God, almost afraid to move. We were engulfed in a holy awe, a holy atmosphere.

So he decided, I'll just look inside to see if the rapture took place. He'd been to church some and had heard preaching about the rapture, and his wife had also talked to him about it.

Sitting on the platform, I was the only person who saw him open the door and look around.

The building was about half full with most of the crowd sitting down toward the front. The back pews were empty, so he sat down on the very back pew as close as he could to the door.

Nobody said a word, not a child moved, not a baby cried—and we'd been there two hours! This move of the Spirit started just a little past 11:00 a.m. and when this occurred it was about 1:15 p.m.

Fifteen more minutes went by. I watched the man as he was looking around all that time. Suddenly, he started shaking violently. He got up and staggered down the aisle like a drunk man, shaking all the while, and fell across the altar calling on God.

No one went to the altar to help him pray. We all just sat there. We figured that what God had started in him, He was able to complete.

That didn't happen just once—it happened frequently. Almost every time an unsaved person would come in on Sunday morning, it would happen to them. They'd start shaking as though they had a chill. No one would say anything to them, but they would get up and come to the altar as the power of God came upon them.

We don't know too much today about the power of God in manifestation. Oh, we see the gifts of the Spirit operate sometimes, but God wants us to have all of it. He wants us to have His full plan.

The Lord talked to me about the manifestation of His power in the visitation in July. He talked about different kinds of meetings which Christians hold. He specifically mentioned believers' meetings.

If I were a pastor again, at certain times I'd have believers' meetings. These meetings would not be for the general public. Things can happen when just

believers are present that should not happen in a meeting open to the general public. But if anyone else happened to come in, they would get saved just as they did in Farmersville, and they would encounter the Presence of God just as First Corinthians 14 says.