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 though 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

What I’m going to tell you here is the truth. But it might be hard to believe. I’m pretty sure this is the most supernatural experience I’ve ever had, at least when I was wide awake and on my feet.

In an earlier blog post I told you about “That’s not how to talk about Jesus.”, during a time in the early 70’s when I was witnessing daily at or near the University of California at Berkley campus. This is something that happened during that time there. My friends and I would daily take our “hippy bus” that we’d converted into something like a mobile coffee house and drive to a place near the Berkley campus.

We’d break up into teams of two, like when Jesus sent his disciples out “two by two” (Mark 6:7). Then everyone would be off with their guitars and Bibles, witnessing to the students as well as the thousands of drop-outs and travelers that were everywhere around there at that time.

Since I was already one of the “older ones” in the Lord, as well as already being into my 20’s, I was the one who stayed back with the bus to take care of it, as well as to pass out sandwiches to anyone who came up and asked for one.

So this “person” came up to me. He seemed to be around my age and size. He had long red hair and a red plaid shirt. So far, so good; right? No big deal. But next I’m going to have to do some explaining. Because things quickly got different from anything I ever experienced, before or after that.

First, let me give you a verse that is important. We are “sealed by the Holy Ghost” (Ephesians 1:13). Someone may attack us physically and even hurt us, if God allows that. The devil can tempt us mightily. But the plain spiritual truth is that we are now the Lord’s, if you are one of His. We belong to a mighty God and no one can enter into our spirits and souls, except of course the Lord Himself. Or one of His messengers.

I started talking with this “guy” and rather quickly things got very different. I’ll try to explain it but it may not be as clear as you’d like. Of course we were speaking English. But what happened was that this being, also speaking English, had such weight, depth and significance in what he said that it was like I was quickly being taken by an elevator up into much higher levels of spirituality. I would say something and then he would respond. But each time, what he said dwarfed what I had said, leading our conversation into depths of spirituality that are hard to describe.

I probably should have written down every single thing I could remember from the experience, immediately after it was over. Sadly I didn’t do that. But the impact of it all was so overwhelming that I might not have even been able to do that.

After our conversation went on for a little bit, basically it got to where it transcended language and English. I guess we were speaking English but our communication was on a higher, more heavenly level than normal English can transmit. And actually, this was all more than a little bit disconcerting. Basically I was facing a being that was much more powerful than me, which could get through any kind of defense or normal ways of man that I might throw up.

I had faced demon-possessed people before and I’d had some spiritual experiences of different kinds. So I was aware at the time that this was an extremely spiritual experience I was having there in the parking lot. There was some fear on my part. But at the same time I could tell and feel that this being was benign, not malevolent. And the fact that basically it was able to get past everything of me and to be speaking and interacting with my innermost soul and spirit was disturbing and a little scary. I guess if I’d wanted to, I could have run off. I was not forced to be there. But basically what ended up happening can only be described as some kind of energy transfer.

He didn’t look like this. But this is what he was.

This angel was very serious and sober. It’s a shame I don’t have anything I wrote down from that experience but back then I didn’t know I should do that. But my strongest remembrance of the experience was that it was like he reached out, gripped my soul and spirit and just sent a strong surge of spirit and energy into me.

The message, if there was one, was that I’d been shown and knew a lot. And that I was very accountable. That I should be very sober and should very much “walk worthy” (Ephesians 4:1) of all that had been shown me and done for me. It wasn’t that this angel was mad at me. But it was just an extremely sober, serious moment and the presence of the fear of God and the knowledge of how important all of this is was just immense.

In many ways, words kind of fail me to be able to describe this experience much more than this. It was in broad daylight in a parking lot near the Berkley campus. I felt like that “being” could have tossed me 100 feet in the air or struck me dead on the spot if that had been his will. Also, I guess it’s like another blog post I wrote “Fear God“, where I talked about the verse “the fear of the Lord is clean”. (Psalm 19:9)

I was afraid. But there was nothing destructive happening with this. If anything was destroyed, it was my shallowness, wavering or anything other than just utter commitment to serving the Lord. I guess I wasn’t thinking that I was shallow or wavering at that time. But the Lord wanted to really strongly impress upon me the imperative of commitment and focus to put Him and His will first.

Actually I was in the first weeks of getting ready to move abroad, to Europe to be a missionary there. So maybe this visitation was a strengthening and sobering message and experience from the Lord to prepare me for the times and battles to come as I left my home country to be a missionary abroad.

It was almost like an umbilical cord. This guy never touched me but he didn’t have to. His spirit and words got passed my mind and my own spirit and just infused me with a warning, with power, with spirit and with thoughts I can’t even put into English. It’s a little like it was pictured in the movie “Matrix” where the Keanu Reeves character, Neo, got a link into his neck and got a data transfer of knowledge. Except in this case, it was real, it was face to face and it was like the angel’s spirit infused my spirit and soul with things of the Lord that I can’t really explain as well as I would like.

And then he left. I was ok, very shaken up but all the better for it. I’ve never had an experience like that again. I’ve had one or two other angel experiences, I’ve shared some of those in these posts and I’ll try to tell about the others. I know, if I was someone reading this post, I might be tempted to think that guy is lying or just making this up. But I’m not.

Angels are out there. “The angel of the Lord camps round about them that fear Him and delivers them.” (Psalm 34:7) They’re there to keep us on the straight and narrow for the Lord. But it’s all not even really easy to write about as it just is above our normal experiences so much that the words used don’t seem equal to the experience.

“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)

God’s Little Miracles: Choice and Babylon

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Mark McMillion

Something strange happened this morning. I guess it’s another of those “little miracles” that I’ve told you about in other places.

I try to start each day with a time of devotions, reading some Scriptural material, reviewing some of the Bible verses I’ve memorized and taking a time of prayer before starting the day.

This morning I was mulling over in my thoughts some things that are happening in my life right now. And as I was starting my devotions, I was thinking about how God gives us our choice, even if our choices are sometimes wrong. I was thinking about the verse “Nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do.” (Genesis 11:6). It’s about the first Babel or Babylon and how God let them have their choice, even when it was really the wrong one.

And I picked up my devotional book and immediately I saw that the passage for this day was based around that very event in Genesis 11, drawing lessons from that incident and the verse that I’d just been thinking about!

How did I come to think about that 10 seconds before I was reading about it in my devotional book? Was it an accident? Just a coincidence? What would a Las Vegas gambler give as odds for something like that to happen?

I at least took it as one of those little “ringing bells in the Spirit” from the Lord that there was something to it which should be explored and possibly shared with others. And perhaps I can share my train of thought that I was having when contemplating these things.

One was just the whole concept of choice. Those people way back then were off track as far as God was concerned. They wanted to “build a city and tower whose top may reach to heaven” (Genesis 11:4) and to make a name for themselves. It’s just another form of what people have been wanting and trying to do for all these thousands of years: ignore God and make themselves great. Make their own heaven and reject the will of God.

God saw this and then said, “Nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do”. Why? Couldn’t He have stopped them? Of course. But He didn’t. He let them have their way. He also scattered them by bringing into their lives a multitude of languages. But it says of this “they left off to build the city” (Genesis 11:8) . They were hindered, delayed. It was still in their hearts.

But then we go from the first book in the Bible to the last. In Revelation we see Babylon again, not as a simple tower from ancient times but a worldwide Babylon, ruling over the people of the earth. And then it says, “For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God has remembered her inequities.” (Revelation 18:5)

The thing that was in the heart of mankind since before the time of Abraham, that earthly material creation called Babylon, where every dream of the unsaved heart of man finds its place, seems to finally be realized in the final days that the book of Revelation talks about. God gives unregenerate man his desire, “Nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do”. In the final end, they get what they want which is called “Babylon the Great” in Revelation.

So we need to watch out what we want. We may get our wish but find it to be ashes in our teeth. It’s like what happened to the wandering children of Israel in their 40 years in the wilderness. King David said of them, when they murmured and wanted something more than manna to eat, that God “gave them their requests, but sent leanness unto their souls.” (Psalms 106:15)

Jesus taught us to “lay up treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:19), the eternal world to come that will ultimately be here on earth. But the vast majority want to lay up treasures on earth, to fulfill the desire to build and be a part of an earthly heaven, the great, glittery false fantasia that’s the worldwide materialistic system that has come to such an awesome tower of prosperity and spiritual filth in modern times. That’s why God says to His people of the end days, “Come out of her [Babylon the Great] My people, that you be not partaker of her sins and that you receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God has remembered her inequities.” (Revelation 18:4&5) What was in unregenerate man’s heart over 4000 years ago has remained there and it is having its climax and fulfillment in our times. “Her sins have reached unto heaven.”

Jesus told the parable of the wheat and the tares. Wheat is good for us, tares are poisonous weeds. But at the beginning of their growth, they can look similar. And at times, at the beginning, simple innocent faith and infantile, undeveloped self will and stubborn independence against God can be hard to discern between. But at the harvest, the difference between the wheat and tares is crystal clear. The wheat has turned almost white and is ready to be harvested. The tares have turned almost black and are worthless. One goes to the fire, the other to be used and to be a blessing. So it is with the things we treasure in our hearts.

The lessons from thousands of years ago are still as true today. “Chose this day whom you will serve. If God be God, serve Him, but if (the gods of this world, Mammon, Babylon and all the rest) be God, then serve them. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”. (I Kings 18:21, Joshua 24:15)

Mark McMillion

Creeds and Deeds, Facts and Acts

Category Archives: Angels, Miracles and the spirit world