We taught for a week at a Karamajong Ministry in Kampala, Uganda. Through a narrow alley and up steep, concrete stairs we went every morning to an upper room. Each time we came, there were more people who gathered. Most of them were prominent business people and high ranking government officials.
Barry and I proclaimed the Word of God concerning His Glory. We taught a hard, challenging message about the sins against His presence that are epidemic in the Body of Christ, including in Africa. Everyone stared intently at us. They barely moved as we declared the need for a genuine, unselfish love for one another and repentance for any sins against love. The kind of repentance that grips us so deeply, we can never go back to the person we used to be.
“This is what it is going to take,” we passionately explained, “if we are ever going to see the same power and miracles that exploded like wildfire in the early Church.”
Day after day, we were all humbled by an increasing awareness that we were seeking to be in the presence of a holy God. A stirring conviction began to come upon the group concerning the negative, grumbling, judgmental and destructively unkind words we speak that always shatter unity and grieve the Holy One of Israel.
Instruction was also given that during worship the Lord doesn’t want us to stay in the outer court where so many of His children spend their entire lives only praising Him.
“He loves our praise,” we shared. “But He aches and longs for His children to go beyond the outer court and intimately worship Him in the Holy of Holies.”
We briefly taught that sometimes God wants us to sing our love to Him in our own “new song,” just like took place in a simple, humble tent on Mount Zion that was called the Tabernacle of David. The people listened in rapt silence as we taught that the Father yearns for a restoration of this kind of worship that brings us so personally close to Him in His presence.
We also carefully explained that as people humbly and reverently seek His face, the Glory of the Lord will come. Supernatural breakthroughs, healings and deliverances from all evil oppression will take place. Lives will be sovereignly and miraculously changed forever.
Friday morning finally came. Shortly after we arrived, there wasn’t room for anyone else to come in. Many stood outside the door. We were instantly apprehended by a Revival Repentance and then a holy hush fell upon us. This sacred silence consumed us with an overwhelming reverence for the Lord of Hosts who had descended so swiftly and powerfully upon us, and had engulfed us.
Suddenly, an avalanche of tears broke out all over the room. People fell to their knees and unashamedly wept. Our voices rose with the harp like a heavenly sounding choir while we sang as if we were all one voice in the “new song” of heaven. It seemed like the walls trembled with the sound of our breathtakingly united worship. A humbling brokenness overwhelmed all of us as we were overcome by the Visitation of God.
Forty-five minutes later it was time for everyone to return to their businesses and government offices. When everyone had departed, I walked out into the narrow, weather beaten veranda that was just outside this upper room. There sat an older man a short distance from where we had been worshiping. He was covering his face with his large, black hands. He wasn’t part of the group of believers who had gathered in the meeting.
He simply was someone from one of the nearby shops who had been drawn by what was happening and had been overtaken by it. When he looked up, he couldn’t speak. His eyes were red from weeping and his face was wet with his tears. I quietly nodded as if to say to him, “I understand,” and silently backed away.
Amazingly, while we were worshiping, the shopkeepers were quiet. All the people stood everywhere in awed silence. This is how Barry and our African team later described this supernatural occurrence to me:
“No one moved on Kampala Road. God came down so powerfully over the building during our worship that the cars and people stopped moving and were silent as far as we could see in every direction. Crowds of people were looking up at the window of the room where we were gathered. Many were pointing to the window and asking, ‘What is this? What is happening in that place? Then when the worship ended, everything went back to the way it always is.”
The Karamajong pastor who was a leader in the ministry that had hosted the meetings, offered to accompany us to our vehicle. He explained, as he walked by our side:
“The men of Africa don’t cry. But today the men in that place shed many tears. Even I cried,” he said with amazement as he glanced up at the sky, as if to acknowledge the God who had so moved his soul. “I know all of these people very well and never have I seen such a sight as I saw today in that room. They knelt and repented. They humbled themselves. They worshiped freely. All of this is unheard of because we Africans know how to praise. But we don’t know this worship that brings us so close to God. This has never happened to these people. None of us will ever forget this day of the Visitation of our God.”
We paused together and silently looked out over the street that was once again crowded with noisy cars and an endless sea of busy, bustling people. Then he spoke again, in an even more urgent voice:
“The hope of Africa is the Glory of the Lord. A move of His Glory is the only thing that can defeat the darkness we are up against. May an understanding of the truths you have brought to us spread like fire across the continent of Africa, and far beyond to other nations. These truths cause supernatural, miraculous breakthroughs. They bring the Glory of the Lord upon His people.”
