The miracle at the border!

The Vilnius official city guide for tourists states a painful truth with admirable honesty. 

'The Polish-Lithuanian border crossings have long, long lines and you face indescribable hassles with customs officials'. 

The last time an Ellel ministries mission team crossed this border it took over 13 hours.

As we left Wroclaw in the transit van, I felt the Lord encourage me to put the new warfare teachings that He had given me in Poland into operation against the spiritual enormity of the border crossing that lay ahead. Only God's Spirit could move you to faith for such an enormous undertaking, but after a few moments pondering I obeyed and spoke out what the Lord was putting on my heart and then encouraged the team to enter into 'high praises'.  (Psalm 149:6-8)

The spiritual reaction to the warfare against such powers was very rapid.  (a lesson for the presumptuous here!)

I was driving the transit van and within minutes I became very ill and had to be relieved prematurely at the wheel. I lay in the back hour after hour as we crossed Poland - stopping off a Warsaw for a McDonalds - and then on towards the infamous border crossing.  In a cramped van it became almost unbearable for me and no one knew what to pray for my debilitating illness.

When we reached the Polish border post there were only a few vehicles in front of us and the officials just stamped our passports and waved us through. This despite the fact that we had some four nationalities on board plus a large load of expensive P.A equipment. One hundred metres ahead the officials did the same.

We crossed through both in 13 minutes. The team faxed Ellel Grange to say that we had 'seen a miracle today'

The moment we crossed the second border post my illness lifted instantly, and from lying across members of the team in a very ill state, I suddenly leapt up and out the door to do a highly energetic jig on the tarmac outside!  Quite a transformation!

 At that very moment the Lord gave me His warfare proclamation (Psalm 149: 9)for Vilnius. The words were 'Bel bows down';.  I stood there repeating them again and again. It made no sense other than it was a scripture. Isaiah 46:1a)  As I looked for these words in the Bible the Lord followed this up with a second word, from Jeremiah 51:44. "I will punish Bel in Babylon and make him spew out what he has swallowed. The nations will no longer stream to him. And the wall of Babylon will fall"

When we got to Vilnius I understood what God was saying. The city's symbol was a howling wolf with head held high. The wolf is a symbol of satan, and the city's history showed why the wolf was imprinted everywhere throughout the city. A certain Grand Duke called Gediminas rested during a hunt one evening at the foot of three hills. During the night he had a vision of an iron wolf howling. He asked a 'holy man' for understanding and he told him that he was to build a city around these three hills, and that all the nations of the world would stream to it.  (It is acknowledged to be the central city in Europe) He first built a strong tower on the first hill which is there today overlooking the city centre (with a model of the iron wolf inside) and then proceeded to build the city up around this tower.

Later three crosses were built upon the middle hill to commemorate the murder of seven monks, and sadly today it is the place which seems to draw young people to in order to commit suicide. 

The third hill is used regularly and blatantly by satanists on and the Pastor took some of the team up to show them smouldering ashes on an altar upon the wooded hilltop overlooking the city.

As we looked into the very foundational facts of the city we could now understand what the Lord was assuring us He would do through the evangelism warfare.  It is best demonstrated by these two illustrations.

The wolf (Bel) - head up - confident of his prey, confident of his territory in the centre of Europe, is made to 'spew out of his mouth what he has swallowed' In order to spew out  he must bow down as a vomiting dog does.

Street evangelism in the very centre of Europe!

Gediminas and the castle he built.  The local newspaper said that when they chose the site for this new statue and dug out the foundations they found a 'ritual stone presumed to be for pagan offerings and containing burnt matter'

When the Ellel team got to Vilnius and met the church we were to work with, it was a chance to put the evangelism warfare teaching into action again (see Poland report).  The town was rife with witchcraft - having being founded on such - with blatant satanism, almost daily reports of violence and murder, so we knew that spiritually things would be difficult!     The castle with the iron wolf dominated the city streets all around

We had two 'Clives' on the team as Ellel director Clive Corfield (now with Sovereign Ministries) joined the team from a successful mission in India - and did some excellent teaching and ministry to the church in the evenings - especially on marriage. Clive Carr and I  gave shortened versions of the evangelism / warfare teaching that we did in Poland to the church and organised the street evangelism to put the teaching into action.

Clive Carr and I went for walkabouts in Vilnius city centre in order to find the best possible site for the evangelism, and to 'spy out the land' and then build up a spiritual map of the immediate area in order to be very specific in our praying.  This sculpture of a 'horned god'  upon a goat was on the street some 30 metres away from our chosen site.

As the Ellel team and the local church team worked together, the results on the street were very exciting. People stopped in sizeable numbers for every evangelistic show (about one every half hour) and people were getting saved on the street. I remember seeing people weep as they heard the gospel. The local church team members told us that they had not seen this happening on the streets before.

As the prayer team put into practise what  God had shown us, and as we exercised the honour that all the saints have of proclaiming His written judgement, daily we saw the iron wolf (Bel) spew captives out of his mouth! Praise the Name of the Lord!

While staying in a 'normal' house in Vilnius, I had to put on six layers of clothes to survive the cold nights, so I could only imagine what he and his family went through. When I returned home we were able to raise that amount exactly thanks to a concert by Alan Cunningham, Manna International Ministries, and the generosity of Northern Ireland people who heard of his plight on local radio when we advertised the concert!  In September the photographs arrived showing Juras and his lovely family enjoying their new home (above).

I have often reflected on this from Juras's point of view. He earned around £10 per week as a pastor in Eastern Europe. He needed £6,200. He prays for a miracle. God answers by sending the money from Northern Ireland, more than 1,000 miles away. Imagine his thoughts! What a God we serve! He is able to do abundantly more than we could ever imagine! My God not only owns the cattle on a thousand hills, He owns the hills as well. He is able to supply all our needs.  Ask Juras!                                                                                                    

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