1994/1995 was a time of great spiritual significance for me, besides it being about 2000 years since Christ came in flesh and blood. Some background: My grandparents were leaders in Pentecostal Church not long after the churches started with revivals. Welsh pentecostal. My parents switched to baptist and I was raised in baptist. There I was baptised. There were few believers in the Holy Spirit gifts or manifestation or miracles there and some taught cessationism (that gifts were not for now) so not much chance I would learn about the Holy Spirit. I got challenged at University. Then after years of desolation I earnestly kept seeking God asking for real knowledge of Him so I could preach properly: by 1994 I was being challenged to preach and later became a methodist lay preacher; and I asked for the Holy Spirit in my private prayers. After earnest prayer one day in 1994 I suddenly got a vision of a building sand bucket being tipped out and the words "Build the temple!". I asked for confirmation three-fold and went to a church that evening where three girls in sunday school sang a song they wrote "build build build the temple; build build build the temple" then two speakers in turn spoke about building the temple - one about David being told his son would do it and David was gobsmacked and said to God "What am I and what is my family that You would give me this honor!". Much followed this.
Later at the end of 1994, at the end of December I think, I asked to see God to preach Father and Son and Holy Spirit with real knowledge. Jesus had taught that God and He would come show themselves to those whose love for Lord Jesus makes them obey. I invoked it after checking myself that as far as my conscience could tell, I was obeying, then I asked earmestly. At night in a dream God stood in front of me and said "I am God" then gave me a task to do with a sign that would happen the next day and it happened as He said and I was so overjoyed to know it was really God I almost forgot to do what He said. Days later Jesus spoke to me and gave me proof it was Him (it was invisibly because I asked not to actually see Him because He had said to Thomas "blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe"). It was Jan 1995, I think. I was going to a river near home in a torrential rainstorm with a huge umbrella up and as I came back a voice clearly said "Put down your umbrella" and as soon as I did that torrential downpour stopped dead. I just remembered the miracle of Jesus giving a great catch of fish and how the disciples said "It is the Lord" and I said the same. I felt it must be Jesus. I asked that night that if it was indeed Jesus He would do such and such by the morning and amazingly He did and I was stunned. The way He did it showed He is my completely powerful Master: Master of my innermost being. I had such calm within. Weeks later the methodist lay preachers supervisor heard I had told people in church I wanted to see real gifts of the Spirit and he took me to the Pentecostal church and I was given interpretation when the man there gave a message in an angelic language (I didn't say it aloud but kept it quiet but the speaker said the same interpretation exactly after I received it).
It went: "Look at the trees how they bud and produce leaves; they do this it by the name of Lord Jesus Christ." It continued about planets or the like but I cannot remember that part. I'd never heard such things. Then the speaker stopped and started speaking in English and his words were the very words I had heard as a translation of the message. I'm certain this was a manifestation the Holy Spirit. A little later I saw a book, The Book of Enoch translated by R H Charles, in an SPCK bookshop and opened it and flicking through saw words almost matching the words I heard in tongues with interpretation so I knew I must accept that this book was a work of this same Holy Spirit. In reading it I might have had that faith sorely tested though were it not for the archeology I had studied. Here is the kind of thing I read in it that first look: "Observe how the trees cover themselves with green leaves and bear fruit: wherefore give ye heed with regard to all, and recognize how He that liveth for ever hath made them so. And His works go on from year to year for ever, and all the tasks they accomplish for Him, and change not, but according as hath ordained so is it done."
A little later, maybe this was still in 1995 but I'm not certain, I was having a bath preparing for church and keen to obey the heavenly vision I was given to build the church. I thought prophecy was how God taught to do it. I knew the church I was attending allowed people to speak in some services. I considered what would I say, would God give me a prophecy. Suddenly words came strongly into my mind "Israel has sinned" and I was told the sign of it would be an eagle overhead. I saw in a vision an eagle with a great white eye flying in the sky. Then there were visions of wars and generals talking. The same day a police helicopter service started and flew later over my local church. It had a search light and camera like that eagle. They called it Operation Vulture. The same day the news showed spy planes black like the eagle. The wars that followed were shown in my vision.
I had started researching the timeline of the scriptures and the copy of The Book of Enoch proved useful over the coming years. Most blessed of all it gave me, though, was its visions of The Son of Man who I understood to be Lord Jesus Christ before He came in the flesh. Believing this book to be authentic it was showing me that the Son of Man, Jesus, had been there from the time of Enoch more than two thousand years BC (before He came in flesh and blood). It made sense of the John 8 "Before Abraham was I am" words of Jesus. The interpretation of tongues about the trees growing by His authority as Lord showed me that even before Creation He is.
Later at the end of 1994, at the end of December I think, I asked to see God to preach Father and Son and Holy Spirit with real knowledge. Jesus had taught that God and He would come show themselves to those whose love for Lord Jesus makes them obey. I invoked it after checking myself that as far as my conscience could tell, I was obeying, then I asked earmestly. At night in a dream God stood in front of me and said "I am God" then gave me a task to do with a sign that would happen the next day and it happened as He said and I was so overjoyed to know it was really God I almost forgot to do what He said. Days later Jesus spoke to me and gave me proof it was Him (it was invisibly because I asked not to actually see Him because He had said to Thomas "blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe"). It was Jan 1995, I think. I was going to a river near home in a torrential rainstorm with a huge umbrella up and as I came back a voice clearly said "Put down your umbrella" and as soon as I did that torrential downpour stopped dead. I just remembered the miracle of Jesus giving a great catch of fish and how the disciples said "It is the Lord" and I said the same. I felt it must be Jesus. I asked that night that if it was indeed Jesus He would do such and such by the morning and amazingly He did and I was stunned. The way He did it showed He is my completely powerful Master: Master of my innermost being. I had such calm within. Weeks later the methodist lay preachers supervisor heard I had told people in church I wanted to see real gifts of the Spirit and he took me to the Pentecostal church and I was given interpretation when the man there gave a message in an angelic language (I didn't say it aloud but kept it quiet but the speaker said the same interpretation exactly after I received it).
It went: "Look at the trees how they bud and produce leaves; they do this it by the name of Lord Jesus Christ." It continued about planets or the like but I cannot remember that part. I'd never heard such things. Then the speaker stopped and started speaking in English and his words were the very words I had heard as a translation of the message. I'm certain this was a manifestation the Holy Spirit. A little later I saw a book, The Book of Enoch translated by R H Charles, in an SPCK bookshop and opened it and flicking through saw words almost matching the words I heard in tongues with interpretation so I knew I must accept that this book was a work of this same Holy Spirit. In reading it I might have had that faith sorely tested though were it not for the archeology I had studied. Here is the kind of thing I read in it that first look: "Observe how the trees cover themselves with green leaves and bear fruit: wherefore give ye heed with regard to all, and recognize how He that liveth for ever hath made them so. And His works go on from year to year for ever, and all the tasks they accomplish for Him, and change not, but according as hath ordained so is it done."
A little later, maybe this was still in 1995 but I'm not certain, I was having a bath preparing for church and keen to obey the heavenly vision I was given to build the church. I thought prophecy was how God taught to do it. I knew the church I was attending allowed people to speak in some services. I considered what would I say, would God give me a prophecy. Suddenly words came strongly into my mind "Israel has sinned" and I was told the sign of it would be an eagle overhead. I saw in a vision an eagle with a great white eye flying in the sky. Then there were visions of wars and generals talking. The same day a police helicopter service started and flew later over my local church. It had a search light and camera like that eagle. They called it Operation Vulture. The same day the news showed spy planes black like the eagle. The wars that followed were shown in my vision.
I had started researching the timeline of the scriptures and the copy of The Book of Enoch proved useful over the coming years. Most blessed of all it gave me, though, was its visions of The Son of Man who I understood to be Lord Jesus Christ before He came in the flesh. Believing this book to be authentic it was showing me that the Son of Man, Jesus, had been there from the time of Enoch more than two thousand years BC (before He came in flesh and blood). It made sense of the John 8 "Before Abraham was I am" words of Jesus. The interpretation of tongues about the trees growing by His authority as Lord showed me that even before Creation He is.
