“It’s a gun, isn’t it?”

Posted on November 22, 2014 by Mark McMillion

I was on an overnight train from Budapest, Hungary to another eastern European capital in the 1990’s. With me was a young French sister in the Lord who was on her way to her new mission field. It was like a time of high summer in the spiritual sowing and reaping of that part of the world, after the fall of Communism made it possible for those people to reach out to the Lord in a way impossible in the past. All was well until late in the evening, after we’d crossed the border.

There had only been the two of us in our train compartment until 5 young guys in their 20’s came almost stumbling into our part of the train. It was Saturday evening, they were drunk and to them we looked like some fun.

Immediately they began to take a liking to my French companion. Meanwhile, sort of the ringleader sat down very close to me and rather intently but somewhat lightheartedly asked me some questions. All the while they were all knocking back vodka or brandy, a common thing people do there to help them sleep on trains overnight.

I should mention that I was actually carrying a somewhat large amount of money on me. This had been given to me as a gift to pass on to a missionary family in the country I was on the way to. I had this in a money pouch under my sports coat. We were all sitting close together and I guess this ring-leader guy noticed it. He suddenly put his hand right on my jacket where the money pouch was and said, “What’s that?!”

It actually was rather a tense moment for me. I was outnumbered 5 to 1, these guys were younger than me, I was in their country, I had a woman with me that they liked, they were drunk and it wasn’t like I could phone 9-1-1 or get any help. The train conductor couldn’t care less and basically it was quickly developing in a dangerous situation. It would not have been too terribly unusual if they’d decided to rob me and throw me off the train while they had their way with my friend.

So when he asked me, “What’s that?!”, I said, “Oh, some papers.” (Hey, telling the truth, right?) He looked at me hard and long and said, “It’s a gun, isn’t it?” I paused, looked back steadily at him and said, “No, it’s not a gun.” He kept looking at me silently.

Next he went out of the train cabin, out into the hallway with some of his buddies. I could see them talking together and then looking back at me from time to time. I continued to keep looking at them but also was staying relaxed. It certainly seemed like they were sizing up the situation and deciding whether to attack me and my friend or not. One thing working in our favor, in the physical at least, was that it was getting later and later and they were progressively getting drunker and drunker.

I guess you could say the end of the story was that they didn’t attack us. The ringleader was convinced I was carrying a gun under my coat and that I was just being coy about it. So gradually they all dozed off to sleep and after a long while my friend and I did the same.

“Mark, that’s not a miracle; you were just lucky!”

Say what you want, it sure felt like a major miracle. The Lord somehow tricked that guy into thinking I had a gun when actually his hand was on a large amount of cash in my money pouch underneath my jacket.

It could also certainly be said that we didn’t quiet really heed the Lord’s admonition to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). We were doing the harmless thing OK but we sure weren’t being wise as serpents. And I never made a border crossing like that again if I was ever carrying anything valuable.

Another major thing was that we weren’t just tourists, traveling around seeing the sights. We were on a mission for the Lord and were under His protection as we went forward for Him. So it was like that verse, “The Lord shall fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.” (Exodus 14:14) Or the verse, “You shall not need to fight in this battle. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord with you.” (II Cron. 20:17) And sometimes, even when we’re doing something that turns out to not really be the truly wisest and safest way to do something, if we’re doing it sincerely in obedience to Him, He can get us out of what could be really serious trouble, like He did for us that night.

It reminds me of some verses that I claimed way back before I’d ever even left the States for the first time to go abroad for Him many years ago, “When they were but a few men in number; yea, very few, and strangers in it, when they went from one nation to another, from one kingdom to another people; He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, He reproved kings for their sakes, saying, ‘Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.’” (Psalm 105:12-15)

Suicide Bomber sees The Light

Posted on November 1, 2014 by Mark McMillion

I received this letter from a friend in Europe recently. It was just astonishing. I’ll add it here as I received it; the English isn’t perfect but you’ll understand. Some names and places have been changed a little. Here’s what my friend wrote:

I know a man who lives in [West Europe] who used to be a “hodja”. That is a Muslim priest (you know, those who serve in a mosque and sing in Arabic). He has a wonderful testimony of how he became a Christian.

He was very ill of a kidney disease and had pain all over his body and a terrible infection. He couldn’t get any help from doctors and finally decided to commit a suicide by blowing himself up at a public place and kill many others with him, especially people from other religions .

So, he prepared everything for this “kamikaze” they call it and went to kiss his little daughter for the last time. But when he left her room and was in the living room, he heard a voice, “Is there only one religion in the world that can help you?”

He said to himself, “Of course not.” Since he was a religious figure, he knew there were more than 3,500 religions in the world. He had been praying to Allah to heal him but nothing happened. So, before going on, he decided to pray to another god from a different religion. “Who knows”, he said, “maybe I can get some help.”

He decided to pray to the Christian God because this is the second largest religion from their point of view, after Islam. So he prayed to Jesus and asked him to help him and heal him.

Immediately all the walls and the floor and the ceiling disappeared and he found himself in the middle of the universe and a great Light was standing in front of him. He knew that the Light knew everything about him but loved him so much. He felt like an empty bucket in front of the Light; he couldn’t give anything in return to this great love.

The Light said, “I am Jesus who you called for help and I’m healing you.”

Then great light came out of the Light and came over him, flowed through him and he felt warmth and peace. Immediately all pain and weakness disappeared and he found himself well and happy in the living room again.

He changed his mind about killing himself and decided that there was point in living now since he was well and somebody heard his prayer. From that day on, he started proclaiming that Jesus Christ healed him.

At first his family and friends thought that because of his illness he had gone insane. But he was getting better and better. He was gaining weight again and strength and went on talking about Jesus. So they decided to kill him because he betrayed his religion and turned to the enemies of God.

Then he took his wife and daughter and escaped to [West Europe] where he found plenty of other people like himself from his country – converted Christians– and joined a Christian church there. This happened about 10 years ago.

Now he is well and healthy, full of zeal for the Lord and weeps for his lost relatives to whom he went back again last year and gave them Bibles and urged them to read and get saved. When we prayed for his relatives in his country to be saved, he started crying dearly. He said, “You folks are happy. You have freedom and you do not appreciate what you have. Talk to the people, talk so that they get saved.”

It’s hard to know what I could add to that. This story affects me in so many ways. I’m thrilled and glad to hear of such a miracle like that. But I am aware that this kind of experience is something that is happening throughout the Islamic world. Not “en masse” but if you keep up with these things, there are many testimonies of Islamic men and women having incredible experiences in finding Jesus this way in recent times. Instead of fearing and hating Muslims, it seems far closer to the ways of God to realize that very many of them are turning out to be the “sheep” of God, rather than the monsters we are so often told that they are.

Many of us have known the verse, Romans 10:13, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” But the next verse says, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” And in these times, the preacher most likely to reach out to the millions of Muslims in western lands around the world is you and me.

Mighty Angels

Posted on September 20, 2014 by Mark McMillion

I’m going to tell you something that might be hard to believe. But it’s the truth—and almost certainly the most supernatural experience I’ve ever had while fully awake and on my feet.

In an earlier blog post, I shared a story titled “That’s not how to talk about Jesus.”, from a period in the early 1970s when I was witnessing daily near the University of California at Berkeley campus. This experience took place during that same time.

My friends and I would take our converted “hippie bus,” which we’d turned into a kind of mobile coffeehouse, and park near the campus. Each day, we’d break into pairs—just like how Jesus sent His disciples out “two by two” (Mark 6:7). Everyone would head off with guitars and Bibles to witness to the students, as well as the many dropouts and travelers who filled the area back then.

Since I was one of the “older ones” in the Lord—already in my early twenties—I stayed behind with the bus to watch over it and hand out sandwiches to anyone who asked.

That’s when this “person” came up to me. He looked to be around my age and size, with long red hair and a red plaid shirt. At first, nothing seemed unusual. But things quickly took a turn into the extraordinary—something unlike anything I’ve experienced before or since.

Let me share a verse that’s key to understanding what happened: “You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13). While someone might harm our physical bodies, and the devil may tempt us fiercely, the truth is that we belong to the mighty God. If you are one of His, your soul and spirit are sealed and no one can enter in except the Lord Himself, or one of His messengers.

As I began talking with this “man”, something shifted dramatically. Though we spoke English, the depth and weight of his words began to penetrate and elevate me—as if I were being carried up in a spiritual elevator. Every time I spoke, he would respond with something far deeper, drawing me up into layers of spirituality that are hard to describe.

I wish I had written it all down immediately after it happened. But the experience was so overwhelming, I don’t think I could have. It was as if language itself began to fall away, and we were communicating on a level beyond ordinary words—more heavenly than human.

It was unnerving. I realized I was in the presence of a being far more powerful than I was—someone who could see through me entirely, easily breaching any defenses I might’ve put up. And yet, despite the awe and fear I felt, I knew this being was benign, not malevolent. He was not there to harm, but he was deadly serious. It was a moment of immense spiritual weight.

I’d had spiritual experiences before, even encounters with demon-possessed people. But this was something else entirely. I could have walked away—I wasn’t being held there—but I didn’t. What happened next was unlike anything I’ve ever known. It was, quite simply, an energy transfer.

Though the being didn’t look like the stereotypical angelic depictions, the power and solemnity he carried felt consistent with how angels are often described. He never touched me, but it felt like he reached into my soul, gripped it, and poured a surge of spirit and energy into me. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t tender. It was serious. And it was holy.

The message, if there was one, seemed to be this: You have seen much. You know much. And you are very accountable for it. The sense was clear—walk soberly, walk worthy (Ephesians 4:1), and do not treat lightly what God has done for you. There was no rebuke, just the overwhelming presence of God’s seriousness and the fear of the Lord.

Words fail to truly capture what happened. It was mid-day, in a parking lot near Berkeley. I felt that this being could have tossed me into the air or struck me dead if that had been God’s will. And yet, it was a “clean fear” like a post I wrote “Fear God“, about “the fear of the Lord is clean”. (Psalm 19:9). Nothing harmful occurred—only the destruction of any shallowness or wavering within me. Any complacency was burned away. I hadn’t thought of myself as shallow at the time. But the Lord was making it unmistakably clear: total commitment and focus were non-negotiable.

I was just weeks away from leaving the U.S. to be a missionary in Europe. In hindsight, it seems this visitation was God’s way of preparing me—strengthening and sobering me for the challenges and spiritual battles that lay ahead.

It was almost like a spiritual umbilical cord. The “man” never touched me, but his words and presence bypassed my intellect and infused my very spirit and being. It reminded me of that scene in The Matrix where Neo gets a data upload directly into his brain—but this was no fiction. It was real time on the street, face-to-face, spirit-to-spirit. His presence left a deep imprint I’ve never forgotten.

Then he was gone. I was shaken, but not harmed—in fact, strengthened. I’ve never had an experience like that again. I’ve had one or two other angelic encounters, and I’ll try to share those in future posts.

If I were reading this story, I might wonder, Is this guy making it up? But I’m not. This happened to me.

Angels are out there. “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and He delivers them.” (Psalm 34:7) They help guide and guard us, especially when we’re being called to a higher level of service. Still, experiences like this are difficult to put into words. They transcend our usual understanding and vocabulary.

But I share this because I believe someone needs to hear it. Maybe it’s you.

“UP AGAINST THE WALL!!”

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Mark McMillion

Would God do a miracle for an unbeliever? An atheist? Jesus said that God “sends the rain on the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:44) He certainly did a miracle for me that kept me out of 2 years of prison at a time when I was really not a believer. Here’s what happened.

While I was going to the University of Texas in Austin back in the late 60’s, I had a nice job, drove a sports car and I was an atheist. I smoked marijuana from time to time, used psychedelics and sometimes I sold a little marijuana and psychedelics. I never sold stuff on the streets, just to close friends. But after awhile I got a little careless. Friends would come with their friends, people I didn’t know.

I lived in an efficiency apartment near the campus and one afternoon I was ironing shirts in my tiny kitchen. Then, kind of out of nowhere, the idea came to me that I really should take my drugs and go put them away somewhere.

I hadn’t been thinking about that till then. But I stopped ironing my shirts, put my several ounces of marijuana and the various pills I had into a paper grocery bag. My thinking was that this would somehow make it look like I was walking around with groceries.

I walked out the door of my apartment and right there was a man on a ladder. That wasn’t normal but I figured he was a repairman. He looked down at me and the paper bag but I guess he just saw the loaf of bread on top.

Shoal Creek, near the University of Texas in Austin

I walked a few blocks down to Shoal Creek, a well known place that students and locals go to for nature walks. I found a secluded spot, put my drugs underneath a rock and walked back to my apartment.

When I got there, I was surprised because the lights were on inside and I always turned off the lights when I left. I unlocked the door. And I was completely in shock to have two policemen with drawn guns coming out of my bathroom and kitchen, yelling at me, “Put your hands up against the wall!”

They had a search warrant for my apartment. I sat on the sofa while they searched everything. In those days, if the police even found a stem, seeds or the tiniest butt of a marijuana cigarette, it would virtually guarantee that you’d spend two years in Huntsville state prison, even as a first time offender. As it turned out, they did find some tiny seeds or stems of marijuana on my carpet.

At last they talked to me and said, “We can take you in for what we found here, the seeds and stems. But we didn’t find what the search warrant was written for. So if we take this to a grand jury, we won’t win. But we’re watching you.”

So they left. And I sat there. Did I praise God? Did I say, “Thank you Jesus!” No. I was a hardened atheist. I believed in nothing other than evolution, chance and the law of averages. (This is what I wrote about in “God is Chance”.) I was convinced that’s all there was.

I can tell you, things like this can really be tough on atheists. All I was really thinking about was,

“Why did I get that idea right then, when I was ironing shirts, to go put my dope away?!”

I hadn’t thought about that before then.The guy on the ladder outside my apartment? Almost certainly a police stakeout. He looked at the bag of drugs but saw the loaf of bread and didn’t do anything. The time between when I left my apartment and when I got back was around 20 minutes. I missed going to prison for 2 years by 20 minutes. It was like I’d been run over by a big truck but somehow I ended up between the wheels. That was how I thought about it afterwards.

So next Sunday I was in church, right? Suit and tie, big haircut and had really changed my ways? Not at all. I was deeply “hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). “Though mercy be shown to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness” (Isiah 26:10).

I guess I just thought that I’d been really, really lucky. But the thing is, all the time, things like this kept happening to me, for good and for bad. Not every day. But these were things that atheism was having a real hard time explaining.

From “Lucifer and the White Moths”

I guess the end of the story is what I wrote about in “Lucifer and the White Moths”. It was over a year later when it virtually took death itself and going to the eternal fires of hell to wake me up enough to turn towards the Lord. But He, in His infinite foresight and knowledge, knew that ultimately I would make that turn to Him.

At the bottom of my heart I was desperately looking for the truth and wanted to do something good with my life. I just really didn’t know there was a spiritual world. So God in His love chose that day to send an angel to probably yell in my ear to get those drugs out of my apartment immediately. I just thought it was my own thoughts. Thank God for His unfathomable love and mercy and power.

Acts 16 live class audio

Posted on August 20, 2014 by Mark McMillion

In Acts 16, Paul was back out “on the road”, obeying what the Lord had told him would be his future and destiny, “to bear my [Jesus’] name before the Gentiles” (Acts 9:15). (You can listen to our live class on Acts 16 here.)

Paul and his companions, first Barnabus and then later Silas, had already experienced severe, violent persecution in our earlier chapters. But in Acts 16, at one point they seemed to have a new dilemma: struggling to find the direction God was leading.

They were back in the area they’d been in before, what is today modern Turkey, and they were visiting regions they had been in before. But then it says, “They were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia.” (Acts 16:6) OK, they might have said, “Let’s just head off this direction”. But then it says, “They attempted to go into Bithynia. But the Spirit did not allow them.” (Acts 16:7)

I don’t know about you but I think at this point they might have gotten confused or perhaps even angry or discouraged. “Jesus, we’re out here in virtual “enemy territory” and then everywhere we turn, your Holy Spirit keeps telling us no! What’s up, Jesus?”

Probably they didn’t exactly say that or react that way but maybe it was a temptation. But it all turns out to be an incredible lesson on following the leading of God and God’s direct revelations. It says next, “And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A certain man of Macedonia stood, begging him, saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us!” (Acts 16:10)

That was it! That was why they weren’t supposed to go to those other places! So immediately they got going that new direction, on toward Macedonia and the beginning of Christianity on the continent of Europe.

God wanted them to go to the major cities and centers, rather than getting off somewhere in the boonies, which is what Bithynia, along the coast of the Black Sea, was in those days. He wanted them to win leaders and people He could raise up to reach their own people in their area. And that’s what happened.

The rest of the chapter is a classic example of the Lord opening doors for Paul and his friends as they “pioneer” a new city, Philippi. The Lord raised up new friends and converts who became disciples as well as hosts and helpers there for the disciples.

And it’s an example for modern missionaries of how you can find people at different levels of belief. It turns out that Paul and Silas met up with some women who came together by a riverside to worship. It says one woman in particular was touched by their witness, Lydia. This woman believed in God, but Paul and his friends were able to share with her the whole council of God. It’s a similar situation to the ones later in Acts 19:2, they knew the baptism of John but that’s all they knew and had heard about. In our Christian witnessing, quite often we find ones who know some about God, they believe some. But then the Lord brings you along so you can share with them truths from the Word and from the life of faith that they’ve never before seen or heard about.

And it seems that in nearly every chapter Paul and his companions are suffering one kind or another of physical persecution. Later in Acts 16, after casting out the spirit of divination from a young woman, her handlers were furious because their source of income had been ruined. So they caused a riot that made it so that Paul and Silas ended up in prison or jail again.

And a famous salvation verse is found in this chapter. Paul’s jailor came to him after an earthquake in the night had opened the prison doors, and the jailer asked Paul, “Sir, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30)

So Paul said, “Well first you have to get circumcised and keep the laws of Moses. You have to be accepted into a local synagogue and complete 50 years of training in the Talmud.”

Do you think Paul said that? Maybe he gave him a long lecture on his sins and a list of do’s and don’ts to keep? Nope. Here’s what Paul said to the man, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, and your house.” (Acts 16:30)

Mark! It’s all too easy! Come on, anybody can do that! The bar is too low, Mark!

I didn’t write this, I just read it and believe it. And actually, maybe that’s the whole point. The bar is low, it is easy and anybody can do that.

But sadly so many don’t. Their pride, their intellect, their own understanding, their upbringing, their background and a 1000 other things keep people from simply doing what Paul said to that man right then: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.

So it’s another wonderful chapter and we had a really inspiring class as we discussed these and other aspects of all this. I hope, if you get a chance, you can listen to the live class audio on Acts 16 which can be heard here. God bless you and yours as you witness and win souls for Him, like the ones of the Early Church did.

Just Did It

Posted on June 22, 2014 by Mark McMillion

Don’t tell me God doesn’t have a sense of humor. As I’ve written about before, I usually go on at least one walk a day. It’s more of a prayer time than really exercise but I guess it’s that too. It’s just refreshing and invigorating to get out in nature and to see God’s creation. But also it somehow helps my prayer life to be out like that.

This morning I was a little bit burdened. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but there were just a number of little things nagging at the edge of my mind and conscience. Things I need to do, things that didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped, responsibilities I have, folks who need my help, etc, etc.

So I was sitting on a park bench quietly pouring out my heart to the Lord about many of these things, not really feeling peace in my heart, not really feeling close to the Lord and somewhat unsure of where I stood with Him this morning.

Maybe it’s like the verse “In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul.” (Psalm 94:19) Somewhat suddenly, “in the multitude of my thoughts within me” I got a strong verse that punched through it all, “Faithful is He that calls you, Who also will do it.” (I Thessalonians 5:24)

That really helped. It was like a theme or an overall message from the Lord and I know other promises along the same lines. So I quoted to myself, “He that has begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6) “It is God that works in you, both to will and to do of His God pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13) And others like that.

The feeling I was getting was that the Lord has done it this far. So many wonderful things in my life that have happened in the last few years have been things He orchestrated and did, not me. He’s “the author and finisher of my faith” (Hebrews 12:2) , “not of works lest any man should boast”. (Ephesians 2:9)

So the Lord was saying with that verse, “Relax, lean on Me, cease from your own works. I’ve been calling you and leading you in what’s been happening so I will be the One doing it, as I have been.” Makes sense, doesn’t it? So it was a relief to get that verse from Him. But there’s more.

If God was going to give you a cake, do you think there would be icing on it? Of course there would.

So I was sitting there on the park bench, mulling over the verse I’d just gotten from the Lord and also the other ones I knew from memory that said something similar.

Then, almost immediately, along came someone walking along the path near the bench. As they walked past me, on the back of their T-shirt was the words, “JUST DID IT”. Hmmm. So less than a minute earlier the Lord had spoken to me with the verse, “Faithful is He that calls you, Who also will do it.” Then almost the next thing that happens is that someone walks by me with a message on their T-Shirt, “JUST DID IT”.

Hmmm. Probably just a coincidence, no? Or was that a case of “confirming His Word with signs following”? (Mark 16:20) I’ll go for the later. To me, it was like the Lord adding some icing on the cake. It was like, “I will do it” (future tense) but also He was saying, “I am doing it now and I have done it in the past.” Whew, the Lord is spreading it on.

It’s like that verse, “Who has delivered, Who does deliver and Who will yet delver us.” (II Corinthians 1:10) Past, present and future, He did it. He is doing it; and He will do it. Eternal.

Well, I’ll tell you, I needed that. I guess we all do. For me though, I really need to have the Lord’s leading and presence and a fresh experience with Him pretty often. Doing these videos, writing these blog posts, I really feel a need to not just be doing my own thing, tooting my own horn and inadvertently getting tripped off into something that’s not of Him.

So I was really glad to have this little experience this morning. It is similar in some ways to other things I’ve had happen to me on my walks that I’ve written to you about before, things like “Hawks and Doves”, “Red Lights and the Sabbath” and “Everything Means Something”. These all happened on my walks to the park.

We all have so much to do, so many responsibilities, folks who are depending on us or who need us. The world is in such a mess and it seems to be getting worse fast. There’s so much confusion and rancor, even among devout Christians. There are so many pointing out vehemently which way we should go or we’re doomed. Maybe for all of us it helps to get away to a garden, to pour out our hearts to the Lord and to get some personal message of comfort and direction from Him. It helped me this morning; I hope you’ll experience the same thing soon in whatever way He may lead.

Direct Revelations

Posted on May 10, 2014 by Mark McMillion

If you never hear a voice, if you never see a vision, if you never dream a dream, if you’ll just obey God’s Word, you can have a wonderful life in Him. On the other hand, God often wants to enrich our lives and provide more power from His Spirit to us by using these other means.

I’m thankful that in my life there’ve been a number of manifestations from Him by His Spirit that have completely been supernatural and unexplainable except through an acknowledgment that God is still a God of miracles. I’ve written several blog posts about some of the “little miracles” that have happened in my life, such as “Lights on the Side of the Road”, “the Radio Miracle” and something that happened 18 months ago here in Austin called “God’s Little Miracles”. It’s so inspiring when these things happen and I’m glad I now have this avenue to share these experiences with others.

God is a supernatural God. He’s not a theorem, an equation or “Mother Earth”. He’s not something that theologians are supposed to dissect in post graduate work. He’s the divine Creator and Guiding Power of the Universe. When I was little, the way it was explained to me is that God is way up there and we are down here. So be good, do good and things will be ok. Don’t bother Him and He won’t bother you. Boy, that sure didn’t help or hold up when things got really tough in my life.

But even in many evangelical churches today, it’s not like they really teach that you can get answers from God or that you can even expect miracles. Here’s a verse that I’ve held on to and claimed in prayer many times, John 14:21. Jesus said, “He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself unto him.” I’ve called out to the Lord many times in prayer to manifest Himself to me. King David of old even prayed to God one time, “Show us a token for good.” (Psalm 86:17) Some might think that’s like “seeking after a sign” (Matthew 12:39), which Jesus chiding the Pharisees for. But the truth is that God loves to manifest Himself to us, if we’re walking in the truth of His Word and following the truth He’s shown us already.

I’ll share a couple of things here where the Lord just totally punched through with something outlandishly supernatural when I really needed it. When I was young in the Lord and had already moved to the mission field of western Europe in the early ’70’s, I ended up in a place where there was a spiritually collapsed situation involving a body of believers I was working with. What should have been a group knit together in His love had been taken over for a while by some cruel, hireling types who were mistreating His flock.

I was in prayer about this as it was very disheartening and suddenly, out of nowhere I got the Bible reference quickened to me, “Jeremiah 10:21”. I had no idea in the world what that verse said but I opened my Bible and read it. It says, “For the pastors have become brutish and have not sought the Lord. Therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flock shall be scattered.”

I was dumbfounded as that verse so encapsulated the situation I was in and also gave a promise that it would be resolved. And it was, by the hand of God. Within two months the “brutish pastors” had been exposed and the ones I was working with were able to find more loving and kind people to shepherd them. But the Lord had just quickened that verse to me out of nowhere, as a comfort and foretelling of what He was going to do.

Another time, even earlier in my Christian life, when I’d only come to the Lord a week or so earlier, I’d been invited to a Christian training camp for those preparing for the mission field and for discipleship. But this was in the States in early 1970 when there was still a very deep divide between the youth culture and the more conservative, establishment side of society. I was beginning to work with the Jesus Movement and at that time it was pretty youth oriented and even radical.

I was told that I would need to cut my somewhat long hair before going to this training camp. It was off in a conservative, cowboy part of the States and it was literally dangerous to be in the area and look like a hippy. But the amazing thing was that the morning before I was told this, the Lord had quickened to me a verse, extremely obscure, Ezekiel 5:1. I’d only been a Christian a few days and I had no idea what that verse said.

But I found it in my Bible and here’s what it says. “Son of man, take a sharp knife, take a barber’s razor and cause it to pass upon your head.” So when a few hours later my friends told me I’d need to have a haircut, I told them that the Lord had already told me that was coming. I was just a babe in Christ and back then I may have figured this was just sort of normal.

It’s not like this kind of thing happens every day. Not at all. The Lord wants us to go by faith and to obey His Word in our daily lives. But also He wants us to know that He can and will do this kind of thing to lead us and guide us and show us what to do. Or sometimes just to rejoice our hearts and/or have a testimony of His love and power that we can share with others. So don’t knock direct revelations. They’re not mandatory. But they are there, they help and He may have one for you.

Acts Chapter 9 live class audio

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Mark McMillion

We’ve continued our weekly classes on the book of Acts and the next one was Acts chapter 9. [You can listen to the full 35 minute class here.] There’s a famous phrase that is associated with this chapter, “a Damascus Road conversion”. Even in secular circles this is a common phrase and it relates to what happened to “Saul”, later called “Paul” in this chapter.

Saul confronted by the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus

On the road to Damascus from Jerusalem a young Jewish zealot was traveling in order to round up members of the growing movement of Christians who worshiped Jesus of Nazareth as the Jewish messiah. Saul was adamantly against these people, as was the Jewish Sanhedrin in Jerusalem who had sent him on his journey.

But at noon a light shined about Saul. He fell from donkey and heard a voice say, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4) And so, on the road to Damascus, this man who later became the Apostle Paul had one of the most dramatic turnarounds in history, which is why that phrase is still used today.

Sometimes God has to use drastic measures. God is love. He is gentle, longsuffering, patience and all that and more. But there comes a time when “His Spirit will not always strive with man”. (Genesis 6:3) When Paul saw the light on the road to Damascus, he ended up on the ground, as he spoke to the light, “Who are you Lord?” And the voice said, “I am Jesus who you persecute.” (Acts 9:5)

The Lord didn’t give Saul a big list of things to do. At first He just said to “go into the city and it will be told you what you must do“. (Acts 9:6) There’s just so much there about the basics of obedience to the leadings of God and how He will just lead us step by step most of the time.

In our class we talked about the importance of Paul to the progress of the spread of Christianity in the first century and discussed what might have happened and how things might have gone if he hadn’t hadn’t his conversion and then took up such an important place in the history of Christianity. Paul seemed to be the fire-starter, the catalyst, the pilot light on the stove that provoked even the original 12 disciples to go further and to do more than they were doing at the time.

So our class this week was on the events of Acts chapter 9. You can listen to the full 35 minute class here. I hope these are a blessing to you, Mark

The Miracle Suitcase

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Mark McMillion

There were so many experiences I had from the time I spent on the mission field which basically were supernatural. The other day I thought of one I included in a newsletter around 2008.

I was living in Ukraine and I planned a trip to Norway. Along the way one of those “God’s little miracle” situations happened which is almost possible to overlook if you’re not sensitive to the hand of God when He intervenes in a miraculous way. Here’s what I put in my newsletter from August of 2008

Just to get from here in Ukraine to Oslo, Norway is no small thing. Flying from here would be extremely expensive. So I found a budget airline that flies from Warsaw, Poland to south of Oslo, Norway. But to get to Warsaw from my city in south east Ukraine was a 700 mile (1200 kilometer) two-nights-and-a-day ride on a bumpity, former USSR train. There was next to no sleep.

After the flight from Warsaw, I landed at the airport about 70 miles south of Oslo, got my small suitcase off the luggage carousel at the airport and found my way to a bus that would take me to Oslo.

Virtually as I was boarding the bus, way out in the airport parking lot, an elderly man quickly came up to me, speaking Polish. I understood that he thought I’d taken his suitcase. He produced the baggage tag that went with the suitcase and, sure enough, it was his.

I looked real closely because the suitcase I’d brought on the trip was borrowed and it seemed like one that not a lot of folks have. But I did notice that the one I’d brought out of the airport to the bus was somehow newer than the one I brought on the trip. About that time, one of the Polish man’s friends came up to us with my suitcase, identical in every way to his except mine was just a little bit older.

What happened was that, when the one I took had come around on the luggage conveyer belt, I saw it and took it. The plane had not been full and it never occurred to me that there could possibly be another bag on the plane that looked the same as mine. It was virtually a miracle that he found me in the airport bus parking lot, just before I was getting on the bus with his suitcase for the ride into Oslo.

I don’t care to even think of how much of a hassle it would have been if I’d not been found by that man just seconds before I boarded the bus for the 90 minute drive to Oslo. I suppose something might have eventually worked out if I had needed to phone the airport about it. But in Oslo, one of the most expensive cities in the world, it would have been a nightmare of time and expense.

That’s how good things can happen to you when you’re praying and others are praying for you. I really thought about all my friends who were praying for me at that time. It was surely just the Lord doing that little miracle to keep me from having to suffer for days from that mix up about the suitcase. Thank the Lord! And thanks to all of you for your continued prayers.

Isn’t that amazing? I was seconds away from boarding that bus with the wrong suitcase for the long ride to Oslo. Those folks found me way out in the parking lot at the last moment. Some would wave all this off as a “lucky coincidence”. For those of us who know and live for the Lord, we know it was more than that. It was “…the Lord working with them, and confirming His Word with signs following.” (Mark 16:20)

God’s Little Miracles: Palaces & “Signs Following”

Posted on December 1, 2013 by Mark McMillion

I believe in miracles. I don’t only believe in them, I’ve had a few happen to me over the years. One of them, in Budapest, Hungary 22 years ago, was very precious, very personal and very amazing. I’ll need to give you a little background to set the stage so that you can see how it was so amazing.

I went through a heartbreaking marriage breakup back in the 80’s. My wife and I had been missionaries based in Vienna, Austria for 5 years, with the goal of reaching what then were the Communist countries in eastern and central Europe. But our breakup meant that we needed to leave that part of the world which I loved and felt called to.

During those months right after the breakup in 1984, I had an amazing dream. I dreamed that I was in a large house full of joy and laughter, also full of young east European people who were happy and full of faith in God. And I remembered that the place in my dream was on or near the Hungarian-Czechoslovakian border. It was an amazing, happy dream. But I just tucked it away as being something encouraging but certainly not something that could ever really happen.

Budapest, Hungary

Then through a series of events and the road of life that the Lord often leads us on, it happened that around 5 years later I was able to return to central Europe in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of Communism in 1989. I moved to Budapest, Hungary with several of my children and was overjoyed to be able to again be back where I felt the Lord had called me to.

Northern Hungary

It ended up that I was looking to find a large house in the Budapest area to be a mission station for the extensive missionary work going on in Eastern Europe at that time. My translator and I found an amazing place but I personally thought it was just way more than we could afford with the budget we were working with. But then in negotiations with the owner of the place, it turned out that they trusted us with their property more than other people who were also interested and could pay more. We were able to agree to a rental fee which, although not cheap, was an incredibly good deal for that property. (And, yes, as you may have guessed, this was north of Budapest, up near the Czechoslovakian border, just as I’d dreamed of years before.)

But here’s the little miracle part, or perhaps I should say the icing on the cake. There came a fateful day in June of 1991 when we were handed the keys to the place and spent our first night there.

A Hungarian “panzio”, a pension or hotel

It was actually not a house but what is called a “panzio”, kind of like a little pension or very small hotel in a village.

So four of us were there for the first night in what was a pretty big place. We decided to have a time of devotion and prayer as some of us had some devotional material with us. Here’s part of what the first passage we read for that day said,

“God has promised us palaces and cities and the cattle on a thousand hills. So if you find the right place, claim it for the Lord and march around it, like Joshua’s people did with Jericho when they conquered the Promised Land.”

We were blown away! “If we find the right place”. Wow! That’s exactly what had happened and we’d just moved in that day! What a confirmation!

But then there was more. We read the second devotional book for that day. Its opening statement was from an obscure verse in Haggai which says, “The glory of the later house shall be greater than the glory of the former house.” (Haggai 2:9) We were speechless! A second confirmation, also talking about houses, promising a greater time than what we were already experiencing! We took all this as a powerful sign that the Lord was going to do mighty things.

And He did. The work that went on there, and in the generally area of central and Eastern Europe over the next few years, was some of the most fruitful and inspiring that I’ve every experience in my 40 years of missionary work.

That wave has now passed and those times have come and gone in a sense. But that time was an amazing fulfillment of the hopes and needs of the many millions of people who’d lived under Godless regimes in those lands for many decades and who finally were able to hear the gospel and to come to know the truths of God.

For me, that happy dream I’d had in my discouragement in 1984 was sent by God as a promise of wonderful times to come. And it even had a specific literal fulfillment some 7 years later in a house near the Hungarian-Slovak border, full of joyful east Europeans, exactly as I’d seen in my dream. It reminds me of the last verse in the book of Mark. “They went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming His Word with signs following.” (Mark 16:20)

Mark McMillion

Creeds and Deeds, Facts and Acts

Category Archives: Angels, Miracles and the spirit world