Spiritual warfare -- Learning to defend

The warfare happened approximately in the summer of 2008 when we received an invitation to attend a special conference along with another worship group of 10+ people in Windsor. The speaker for the conference was Yuan Zhimin. Also, as we later found out, the leader of the worship group whose name is J made a very courageous and bold move in inviting us as the Holy Spirit did some wondrous work on him.

Approximately 3 months ago, we received a request to lead the congregation in worship with the worship group. At the time, our worship team was called “xx tambourine” consisted of 7 members. Before we went, we prepared by praying, fasting, and practicing songs and dance moves. All seemed well at first. Then, one night I had several dreams related to spiritual warfare that the whole worship team would face. The summary of the dreams were along the lines of God showing me once more from a few years back my visits and understanding of demons. In the dreams I received a warning that spiritual warfare would soon start. The same warning repeated a couple times so as to awake my spiritual drowsiness.



However, I was inexperienced in term of leading a worship team. For me personally, it was a new beginning and learning process. So, I gathered all members of the worship team in prayer by first sharing with them my understanding in spiritual warfare and how Satan carried out his work of destruction just as when we are passionate for God. I stressed to the worship team members that we must prepare our hearts. The reason is that I received a clear understanding and insight every one of us more or less would have to face spiritual warfare. In the dreams, God lets me see that not only our spiritual life could be threatened and endangered but also there may be all kinds of attacks on people- to- people relations. This is why I delivered the message about spiritual warfare to the worship team beforehand.

Unexpectedly, the very next week, the whole family of one of our worship team members got into a car accident at around 2-3 AM. The accident was caused by a drunk driver. In the accident, the car of our worship team member got completely destroyed, but praises the Lord no harms came to the team member and his family. Car accident also happened to another team member but he also did not get hurt. He just experienced some emotional trauma. Two other members also fell ill. About 3 weeks later, just before we started out, my husband and I were driving on Highway 401 getting to a stretch of declining gradient at noon when our old black Toyota of 1999 of which we owned for about 3 years suddenly experienced engine failure. The sudden dying of our car engine was very abnormal as the engine made no more sound, and the car lost control.

My husband at the time was really nervous. He said to me that there was a big problem with the car. We were going very fast at around 100km/h on the highway and the speed remained around 70km/h as we went downhill after the car engine died. It was as if the car were in a neutral position.

My first reaction was to pray and call out to God. So, I bowed my head and said:” Lord, what happened to the car? Please keep us safe” All of a sudden, the car stopped. Afterward, we learned that the problem was the car engine dropped out to the bottoms which even the car mechanic never heard of such an incident happening before. Praise the Lord! The car stopped miraculously. At the time only I carried a cellphone. The problem is, the phone was drained of battery so technically speaking we couldn’t make a call. However, as most of you know, at the moment of starting a cellphone that there is a short span of about 10+ seconds when you can call. On the road, we tried to call one to two people.

Due to unexpected condition of the car, we went from the highway to a fork. There was little traffic at the fork. People driving on the highway couldn’t see us. Also, the phone battery was dead not to mention we didn’t know how long there was to go before getting to a place where we could get help. The only thing we could do was to stand on the roadside and pray.

I discussed with my husband saying “If we can only make one call, who we would call?” At the time, two people appeared in my mind: One is our senior pastor and the other a younger pastor. Why I thought about these two people? The senior pastor is very spiritual, but says little Mandarin. So I said to my husband, I thought about these two people. What do your think? My husband replied saying “the senior pastor is more advanced in age and he may not hear clearly what we wanted to say. Perhaps we should call the younger pastor because he can hear clearly what we say.”

So, I opened the cellphone. I remember saying only two sentences and then the phone battery went dead. The first was: I got into a car accident. The second was: my car was on highway 401. The only thing for me to do was to pray. My husband said that he would walk ahead further in search of someone for help. The time we called the younger pastor was 5:30pm and it was getting dark. I prayed earnestly for somebody to come and give us assistance.

At around 8 pm, I saw a car coming down from up on the highway. Praise the Lord! I saw the younger pastor who we called earlier coming down from the car. I exclaimed:” O my God! You finally appeared.” Then the pastor said to me 1) you did not tell me who you are on the phone 2) you only said that you were on highway but not which exit. The only thing for me to do was to pray saying” If this person who called needed help, please tell me her actual location.” I didn’t have an answer myself so I can only obey the indication of my heart to find you. I drove on highway 401 for 3 times but didn’t see anybody needing help or car accidents.

The fourth time around, I was preparing to give up and go home. Suddenly, the Holy Spirit said to me “drive down the fork.” So, I listened to the voice and saw you with the car. Once I heard the pastor’s testimony, my heart yelled hallelujah! This is because in the context of the pastor not knowing who called him and the location where the call came from God brought the pastor to us. This goes to show that our God is indeed living and true. Later on, my husband came back not finding anybody available for help. In the end we towed the car to a garage for repair. It was not until after 11pm when we finished taking care of business.

Through the car incident, I understood in my heart that going to the conference carried with it much danger. Spiritual warfare manifested in our daily life. That said, our God is victorious and He kept us safe. One week later, we departed for the conference. We were thankful in that God offered his protection even when attacks in the form of car accidents came upon some worship team members. All of the team members who came under attack still decided to attend the conference as they got on the bus joyfully.

Every morning at 5AM, we got up to pray, practice, and worship. In the church, the outreaching ministry left me a notable impression, and this was also a turning point in our spiritual life especially in the areas of working together as a group. The first worship session at the church was special. Although we knew the church was traditional but we had no clue how traditional it was nor are we prepared in the heart. Also, nobody told us how traditional the church was. For us, as a worship group, we simply enjoyed worshipping the Lord freely.

When the worship team started with the first song, we didn’t go up. At the second song, we started to worship the Lord with dances. The pastor of the church said around 300 to 400 people came to the conference. The first two rows were local pastors, preachers, elders, and deacons. When we started dancing, all the people were sitting down and nobody stood up to worship. Pastor Huang who was responsible for managing the worship team called out to the congregation to stand up and raise hands in worship but no one responded. Sitting seriously seemed like the worshipping style they are used to. As I was leading dances, I saw the discomfort and uneasiness written all over the faces of elders and deacons sitting in the front two rows as if our dances worshipping the Lord were offensive to them.

However, I didn’t mind. I understood that our dances were for the Lord. There was only one audience, and it was our Lord. It didn’t matter how others saw us. We only worshipped our God. Then it came the second song. Some people at the back stood up because your hearts would be attracted when you see others truly worshipped the Lord in spirit. Bodies would naturally become relaxed so as to enjoy the joy of God’s companionship.

When it came the third song, the Holy Spirit started working in the congregation. Most people stood up to worship. Some even raised up their hands and sang along loudly. I remember an old lady probably in her 80s sitting in front was in a wheelchair and had one of her legs bandaged, looking bruised. Due to the passion of worship and work of the Holy Spirit, the old lady stood up holding onto the wheelchair and started moving her body. Finally, she even turned around her back and lifted up hands circling around the wheelchair to worship the Lord. The old lady’s passion infected the two to three rows of people around her. They all stood up with some even walking to the aisles to worship the Lord. Praise the Lord! By the fourth song, the elders and deacons sitting at the front two rows also stood up. Some of them stood up at the start of the third song. In the end though, all people stood up and raised their hands in worship.

The worship, glory, and anointing started pouring down from above. As I was on the stage, I clearly felt the glory of God and there was mist in front of my eyes. The mist of glory was all around on the stage as it came upon our worship team. I was able to touch and feel the heaviness of the mist of glory to the point where there was great heaviness that came upon my body and shoulder.

In the past, I did not take special notice of the word “glory”. However, ever since I was able to feel the heaviness of glory, I looked up the scripture after coming back to Toronto for the word “glory” and found it means “heaviness” in Hebrew. It turned out that “glory” has heaviness and density. At the time of worship, I saw that our team members were so into worship to the point where for some tear was all over their faces. I was moved as well. One worship team member shared a testimony that not only the whole worship team was moved into tear but also it felt like as if someone were leading the team to dance. I shared the same feelings in that angels were taking part in worship with us. I especially felt God was among us moving our hands and legs so that they moved with the will of the Holy Spirit. Our dances moved beyond all the rules and physical limitations as we can freely express love for Jesus and God.

When Yuan Zhimin came into the church to start preaching, I saw clearly a man dressed in white robes standing beside him. There was white light from the beginning of Yuan Zhimin preaching and white mist persisted throughout the day until the end of the conference. At the end of the day, more than 100 people walked to the front of the stage, and I estimated that approximately 70 to 80 of them made the decision to make Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. We thanked God for doing great works among us so that we experienced such wonderful things. Praise the Lord!

Narrated by EC,
Compiled by YY, Translated by BP