Coming into the Spirit Realm

Coming into the Spirit Realm

Joyce and I are hearing of unusual things, out of the ordinary things, happening all around the world, today.

In the “Church of our Tradition,” before we received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, we chose not to believe anything that couldn’t be proven. One time we prayed and a close friend was healed, and then we, along with her husband, wondered why the doctor had so falsely diagnosed the problem. Why the doctor had caused so much fear in the family. Because of our false beliefs, our minds were so closed to the supernatural that we couldn’t believe a miracle even when we experienced it.

But then, one day in 1968, God stepped out of the pages of our Bible and into our lives.

Joyce was driving our car on a highway in New Mexico when a truck started moving into her lane. When she saw what was happening, she slammed on the brakes but she couldn’t slow down fast enough to get our car behind the truck. The truck’s big tires were getting closer and closer to our small car. There was nothing she could do. It seemed like there was no safe place to go. The area between the lanes was very rough, a steep slope with trees and bushes, even two concrete posts.

We were still going about 60 miles an hour when Joyce had to pull the car away from the truck and into this rough area. The steering wheel began jerking wildly from side to side. She was holding on with all her strength trying to control the car. And then the back of the car went out of control and begin to slide down the hill. The car was about to turn over. Two concrete posts were getting closer and closer and we both realized there was nothing she could do.

But she did the right thing! She cried out, “God save us!” and the car was instantly stopped. We didn’t feel the car come to a stop. There was no more jerking, sliding, motion. Our bodies weren’t thrown forward. All of this was happening and then, instantly, the car was completely stopped. We all looked at each other. What had happened? Joyce, our son, our daughter, me, none of us felt any motion of the car stopping. God had intervened! He took us from the natural realm to the supernatural realm, and our lives were saved from a horrible accident, very possibly, even from death.

The doctor had told me just a few short days before this happened that my life was over, that I was going to die. But when God supernaturally stopped our car, He became real in our lives. We no longer believed just in a God who was far away in heaven, we believed He was involved in our daily lives. Just one day after God stopped our car, He healed me, and that was in 1968, over forty years ago.

We were talking about this one day, when a friend told us about what had happened to him when he was in Bible School. He was taking the place of a pastor who had to be out of town and early Sunday morning he was driving rapidly on the highway to the church. A large semi-truck ran a stop sign and pulled across the road in front of him. There was no time to do anything. He thought, “Oh God, this is where I’m going to die,” and as he gripped the steering wheel, he closed his eyes. But the crash didn’t happen… He opened his eyes and as he looked in the rear view mirror he saw the truck, still across the road, but now it was behind him. How could this be? And then he said, “I never told anyone about this before. I knew they wouldn’t believe me.”

How do we go from the natural to the supernatural realm? How can we be instantly transposed from one realm to another? It’s through the power of the Holy Spirit.

In Acts 8, we read the wonderful story of how Philip led the Ethiopian Eunuch to a saving knowledge of Jesus. In verse 38 and following we read, He baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip that the eunuch saw him no more … But Philip was found at Azotus. And of course there is Enoch, “By faith Enoch was translated so that he did not see death, and was not found because God had translated him” (Hebrews 11:5).

We live in an exciting time. We can expect to see the supernatural all around us. We can learn to live more and more, in the Spirit Realm.