August 2002
Dear Prayer Partner,
This month I am sending you a copy of a testimony on “Salvation for Your Family” written by Kathie Walters, Good News Ministries . You will be encouraged as you read the article in its entirety even though it is lengthy. The principle Kathie shares is one that God taught me many years ago. Yes, God proved Himself mighty in my situation as well. The Word Ministries’ staff and I appreciate you and pray for your well-being.
Germaine Copeland
Your Partner in Prayer
GETTING YOUR FAMILY SAVED —
BEFORE THEY REALIZE WHAT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED!
NOW IS THE TIME!
By Kathie Walters
kathiewalters@mindspring.com
[For books and tapes by Kathie Walters, a regular writer for THE ELIJAH LIST, simply click on: http://theelijahlist.safeshopper.com/284/cat284.htm?257 ]
The Philippian Jailer saw a demonstration of God’s power and it scared him.
Paul and Silas, while in the inner prison (not a nice place) complained to God saying, “Why did you let this happen to us? I mean, we are supposed to be successful preachers of yours aren’t we?” Well not exactly. They actually sang praises to God in that awful place– At midnight, not just during their lunch hour! Not quietly either. The other prisoners heard them.
The other prisoners probably weren’t too happy. Most people try to sleep at midnight. Have you ever been kept awake by a bunch of noisy Christians? I have. I decided that God wouldn’t think too much of my killing them, so I decided to join them instead. Well back to the prison; as a result of Paul and Silas’ singing ministry, there was an earthquake and the prison doors opened. The poor jailer was terrified! If they all escaped he could lose his life.
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ALL HE WANTED TO KNOW WAS,
“WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?”
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You know, if there’s a shaking going on, the safest place to be is in the Shaker!
Well here is the conversation that the Jailer had with two of his prisoners – the cause of all the disruption.
(Acts 16:30-35) “And he (the jailer) brought them out, and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’”
“And they said, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, and your house.’ And they spoke unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.” And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.”
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HOW THE HOLY SPIRIT AFFECTS GENERATIONS
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We often pray for people for deliverance if their family has been involved in the occult in some way, realizing that occult involvement can affect your family – even to the third and fourth generation see (Duet. chapter 5). Well, if occult spirits can affect your family HOW MUCH MORE can the Spirit of God affect your family for generations? He is the creator and sustainer or life itself.
In Psalm 115:13-14 it says,
“He will bless them that fear the Lord. The Lord shall increase you more and more, you and your children.” Read about the promises for you and your children in Psalms 69, 78, 102, 112, 115 etc. God has provided many things for us simply because we are his children. His promises are our inheritance. All the promises of God are in Him (Jesus) are yes and Amen.” (2 Cor. 1:20)
and,
“There are given to us exceeding great and precious promises…..” (2 Peter 1:4)
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WIMPY FAITH
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Before my husband and I were filled with the Holy Spirit we tried to witness to our family, not very successfully. They were “politely interested.” That really means they weren’t affected by what we had! David’s dad was a Polish, Jewish man, very sweet and kind. His mom was a very nice and a help-your-neighbor-at-all-times religious Catholic lady. She didn’t see a need to add anything to her “religion.” My mom, well she was a very proper English lady who never raised her voice because it wasn’t “proper.” She thought religion was for bad people who weren’t brought up properly. My dad died when I was 12 years old. Our parents occasionally accompanied us to church on special occasions, or when we really manipulated them to come.
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GOD’S FAITH
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When we got filled with the Holy Spirit we changed! We were in a revival. We couldn’t leave them out. We prayed for them for about the 500th time. The Lord spoke to us. I’m sure He spoke to us before, but we didn’t know that God could speak to us apart from in the Bible, so we weren’t exactly listening.
We said, “Lord, please save our parents.”
But He asked us, “When will you believe they are saved. . . when you SEE IT, or when you PRAY? The Bible says, “Therefore I (Jesus) say to you, ‘What things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them” (Mark 11:24).
“Oh! (that’s a thought) you mean believe BEFORE we see!” That was a new concept to us, but we began to get a handle on faith, finally after 12 years as good, very-doctrinally-correct Evangelicals. We looked up the scripture verse. Then we said, “Well Lord, we will pray one more time for our parents and we will believe the answer right now.” So we prayed and then began to thank Him that our parents names were written in His book- we received it by faith, just like He said in Mark 11.
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OUT ATTITUDE CHANGED
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Our attitude towards are parents changed, because they were saved now. It was very real to us. For a start we stopped harassing them and treated them like they were saved. They thought we were weird, but that didn’t stop us. We weren’t going to be affected by the sight of the eye, nor the hearing of the ear. This is what happened next, a serious blow to the religious mind.
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David’s Dad (“Pop-Pop”)
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About a month after our prayer, “Pop-Pop” was sleeping in the middle of the night. His wife turned on the light as he was moving around in the bed. Pop-Pop was sitting up in bed with his hands raised in the air. He was speaking, although still asleep. “Jesus my Messiah! Jesus my Messiah!” When he woke up the following morning, HE WAS SAVED, HE HAD MET JESUS IN HIS SLEEP. He was changed. He came to our house and got filled with the Holy Spirit and Baptized in our bath. But he really got saved when we prayed, a month before. It happened in the Spirit first!
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David’s mom
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Mom was a good person, a religious lady. She didn’t see a need to get really personal with Jesus. When someone doesn’t see a need, it can be hard (see the “cat” story below.) A few weeks later she hurt her shoulder and was in pain. We took her to a healing meeting and she got healed instantly. She decided Jesus was worth getting to know personally!
My mom was very “proper.” But she turned out to be a surprise. Maybe “shock” is a better word. After our revelation about her salvation we went to visit. We were excited. You have to understand something about my mom. As I said, she never raised her voice because it wasn’t “proper” for a lady to do that (This is in the U.K.). Actually she was quite a snob in her own quiet way. Mom didn’t approve of my best friend because her father worked on the railroad. Never in her entire life did she ever call me Kathie (Kathryn was my “proper” name).
When I first met David, my husband, he bought me a Bible for my birthday. I had just gotten saved. My mother was furious about it. You see, in her mind David was saying that she hadn’t brought me up right, because now I needed a Bible! And, the Bible was for people who didn’t know how to behave properly. However a few days later, when she saw me writing in it, underlining some scriptures, she was horrified. “You shouldn’t write in that book.” It was puzzling to say the least.
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Mom gets mad
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But now we were Spirit filled, had some faith, and Mom was SAVED! We had prayed, remember? And we believed it was done. Our visit was not as we expected. As we talked a bit about Jesus she suddenly got MAD. When you get into the spirit realm, all kinds of things get stirred up. She started yelling at us. I never heard her raise her voice in all my 28 years. “Jesus loves you” I offered.
“Get our of my house and never come back! I am not going to visit you when you are put in a mental hospital!” Wide-eyed we backed out of the house. We walked down the path to our car. As we left David and I spoke to one another. “She is saved, but she doesn’t realize it yet.” These weren’t just words – it was real to us, that she was both saved–and didn’t know it.
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Phone calls
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Over the next few weeks she would call me on the phone, but as soon as she heard my voice she would start yelling again. I held the phone a yard away from my ear – then said “Well Jesus loves you mom.” Then would come the crash of the phone being slammed down. I would say to whoever was around me, “She is saved, but she doesn’t realize it yet.” After a couple of months of this I said to God, “You know this is getting a little hard. Please can you let her know that she is saved now?”
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“I’m bored,” Mom said
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The following Saturday I got another call from my mom. When I heard her voice I held the phone an appropriate distance from my ear. But, surprise, she wasn’t yelling. We had a conversation at last. “How are you?” I asked. “Well if you really want to know, I’m bored. I don’t know what to do tomorrow (Sunday).”
“Maybe you could go and see a movie” I volunteered.
“People shouldn’t go to movies on Sundays.” I decided not to reply to that one!
“Well maybe there will be something on the TV you can watch.”
She sighed, ” I’m sick of the TV, it’s rubbish” (English version of trash).
“Maybe you can visit your sister.”
“She talks about people all the time” she replied. “She can’t talk about people by herself” I said. No answer. I began to get an inkling of where this conversation was going.
“I thought I might come to your meeting.”
Silence from me for few seconds. After all she hadn’t been all that nice for a while.
“Hello, she said again. I thought I might come to your meeting.”
“Well mom, I don’t know if you would like it. It’s not ‘church’ like you think. It’s noisy and we never know what’s going to happen. I don’t think you would like it.”
Mom’s voice raised slightly. “Who do you think you are? How do you know what I would like? You’re not me. You don’t know what I would like!”
“Well of course we’d love you to come, we’ll pick you up.”
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ASKING GOD FOR A “USER FRIENDLY”
CHURCH SERVICE FOR MOM
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Before we picked her up, I had a conversation with God. Maybe not really a conversation in the true sense of the word because He didn’t actually answer me. “Lord, you know my mom is coming to the meeting so please can you tone it down a bit. I mean can you do a nice un-wild meeting, so she doesn’t freak out and never come back?”
Well, she came to the meeting – a bit nervous. I was more nervous, hoping for a relatively quiet meeting. From the first I knew it wasn’t going to happen. It was noisy. Lots of laughing, very un-religious. Then the Holy Spirit came upon a lady who was hungry for God, but she had a mindset problem. The Holy Spirit picked her up and she went flying so to speak and landed on her back right at my mom’s feet, speaking in tongues. That lady was changed for ever! So was my mom. My mother WAS SAVED THAT NIGHT, and filled with the Holy Spirit and Baptized in water. She wasn’t really, she was saved when we prayed 2 months earlier- but now she realized it!
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APPLYING IT TO OUR DAUGHTERS
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I applied this to my daughters – we told them that God had a great destiny for them and they have both served God and moved powerfully in the spirit since they were 3 years old.
Don’t limit God – He can use a CAT!
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THE CAT STORY
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Years ago I was in a wonderful move of God in London. We reached out to people through the gifts of the spirit and in faith. One of the elders in our church was an actor named John. John had been in a show for a number of months and he had a burden for the orchestra leader. But this man was not interested in the Gospel although John shared with him several times.
The orchestra leader (Denis) was very happy – had a good marriage, good income, nice home. Didn’t drink or smoke. As the saying goes, “Everything in the garden was lovely.” This was frustrating to John. The man saw no need of getting saved or giving his heart to God. The play finally finished its run and we prayed with John for this man. “Lord, please reveal a need that this man and his wife cannot meet for themselves.”
We believed and left it at that and John did not see the man any more – UNTIL – about a year later we were all in a “Let your Light Shine” march in London.
There were many thousands of Christians taking part in the march – all singing and shouting praises to God. As we walked – John suddenly looked up and a hundred yards away he saw the orchestra leader, carrying a huge banner, which said in bold letters “JESUS IS LORD!”
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A NEED THEY COULD NOT MEET THEMSELVES
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John took off to find out what happened to this man and is it ever an interesting story. The next day at church we found out what had happened! Denis and his wife were living their happy-go-lucky life, when their little cat was taken very sick. The veterinarian said that the kitty had Leukemia and that she couldn’t live for long. He offered to put the cat to sleep. The couple were distraught. They loved their little cat.
Denis suddenly remembered that John had said something to them about healing, so they looked in the Yellow Pages to see what they could find about healing. They came across the London Healing Mission which was actually nothing to do with physical healing, but a ministry to street people.
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“DO YOU HEAL CATS?” THEY ASKED THE REVEREND
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They called the number in the phone book. “Do you heal cats?” they asked, when the Reverend answered the phone. “Well I don’t see why not, after all they are God’s creatures,” he wisely answered. Denis and his wife wrapped the cat in blanket and drove clear across London to the mission.
When they arrived, they put the cat into the arms of the Minister who answered the door. “Lord, please touch this little cat” was about all he prayed as far as I can remember. The cat suddenly leaped from his arms and was perfectly (purrrfectly–sorry, I couldn’t resist) fine. The couple were saved that night and since had been Spirit-filled. God answered our prayer and worked through a need they eventually had! Isn’t that wonderful?
Friends, we need to release our faith and pray. Don’t limit God. Avail yourself of His promises. I am convinced that we miss such a lot because we let old slue foot, the devil, rip us off. Faith is not to do with what you feel. Faith is a DECISION YOU MAKE.
Remember you are placed on a Rock – don’t be moved.
—- Kathie Walters (“Next Ireland/Scotland tour with Kathie and John Scotland from Liverpool is 24th September”
You can email Kathie Walters at: kathiewalters@mindspring.com
The above story is from Kathie’s book, Living in the Supernatural, available from THE ELIJAH LIST To order it (or many of her other books, click on: http://theelijahlist.safeshopper.com/284/cat284.htm?257
Check out Kathie and David Walters ministry at:
Kathie Walters Books/tapes/articles:
www.goodnews.netministries.org/kathie.htm