If you want a captive audience, a prison is a good place to go. The only problem is that none of the prisoners are usually glad you came if they're not saved.
But I tell you, there is nothing more thrilling than going into prisons. We have gone into prisons all over the country, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost really come alive in prisons.
Freedom in Christ
On July 4, 1976, my husband, Bill, went into a prison to preach on freedom. Isn't it great how the Holy Ghost sets things up? What better day for a gospel message on freedom in Jesus than Independence Day?
It seems we have created holidays to remind us of things we ought to remember all the time.
Well, on this day we decided to give up the fireworks and go to the prison. While Bill was preaching, the anointing was so strong on him that even the hard-core criminals were weeping. He wasn't giving an altar call or anything, just preaching under the anointing.
He saw three people in white clothes sitting in the back—he thought they might be cafeteria workers because they had long hair and were dressed in white. But he also noticed that they were really big. I mean Bill is no small guy, but sitting down, these people were BIG.
Bill was distracted by the fact that their clothes weren't just white, but were brilliant.
No one else saw them except Bill, and as he spoke they confirmed what he preached. They would look at each other and nod, and then they would stare straight ahead.
God confirms His anointed Word in a lot of ways.
Twice I have seen a cloud descend over the people to the extent that I couldn't see anything, and I wanted to go with that cloud when it left. Do you have any idea what I mean?
Well, God wouldn't let me. He wanted me to continue what I was doing. I just wanted to lay down and go to sleep and disappear in that cloud. But God said, No, I want you to continue. I'm doing something here. It was all I could do to stand in the middle of it.
We Must Renew Our Minds Daily
Those days are coming more and more as we are faithful, diligent, and unified in spirit, soul, and body. But one of the reasons we don't see it is that we don't believe it. We don't prepare ourselves for God to move, and we don't really respect His work enough.
We would like to see it and get caught up in the goose bumps when it happens. We would probably even talk about it all week. But what happens the other three weeks of the month? The other months of the year?
We must separate ourselves once and for all from this world and its contaminating influences and renew our minds daily to the Word of Truth.
In church services, Christians shouldn't be the ones coming forward to get healed. They should be walking in divine health. There is no reason for them not to, except due to a lack of knowledge.
The Bible says that God's people perish for lack of knowledge, and so they perish. The hospitals are full of perishing Christians.
Until the life of the Christian is so obviously different from the life of the sinner, why should the sinner want what the Christian has? The anointing needs to flow for those people to come to God.
Today in churches, musicians suffer from much the same problem. They're all worn out before they get to the service and have to use their faith just to stand there and play or sing.
They feel blessed if they get to sing a song or two before the preacher cuts them off. If they get a little too carried away, then praise is over, and the service moves on to announcements or something else. That is why we don't see God move.
More Important Than Time?
It's so good when God moves that people don't care how long they stay. In Africa we would minister for four or five hours in a church. It was nothing—the people just wouldn't go home. You couldn't get them to go home.
Some had walked for miles and some for days to get to the service. They really wanted to know and learn about God.
They brought their food, and they ate and slept right there on the floor. They didn't care. They weren't going to leave until they got from God what they needed.
Until you are determined to get from God what He has to give you, you aren't going to see that glory cloud. When you get one heart, one mind, one attitude, just as if you had one body—even if it's in a small group of people—you'll see things happen.
The purpose of this unity isn't just to get a great blessing, but so your life will be so saturated with that glory that when you see people on the street, they'll know something is different, and they'll feel the anointing of God.
We can't keep coming to church to learn the Word and forget it when we're with sinners. We believe it…then we doubt it. Then we expect it to work for us.
Remember, the covenant of God is for you to share with sinners. Get them in on it!
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers