A Testimony of Victory
My daughter Susan and I struggled with our relationship after my salvation in 1985. She watched her parents undergo first a separation, and then a divorce. To her, my newfound Christianity caused nothing but pain for our family.
She traveled to Ames, Iowa, after her second year of college for a weekend visit with me. I looked forward to showing off my beautiful daughter to friends and enjoying her company, but she was sick most of the weekend. She said it was due to a bad tooth.
When I drove her back to Ottumwa on that Sunday, she curled up with a blanket and fell asleep in my Ford pickup. I used the quiet time to pray softly in tongues, asking the Lord for an answer about her sickness. The Holy Spirit eventually spoke to my heart: “Susan is very sick. Tell her mom to take her to the doctor right away tomorrow morning.”
I related the Holy Spirit’s exact words to Susan’s mom.
The doctor admitted Susan into the University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City the next morning. Her mom phoned and said she needed surgery to remove some kind of growth. I notified the Des Moines Vineyard Church, where I attended at the time, so as many people as possible were praying for her.
The physician delayed her surgery for a week because she had a fever. I continued painting houses in Ames while fasting and praying for her.
My prayers were not vanilla flavored ones like: “O Lord, if Thou art not busy next Tuesday, could Thou stop by the hospital and touch Susan. Thy will be done in this matter. Amen.”
Baloney! This was my daughter −not a roast beef dinner needing some pastoral sounding words prayed over it before being eaten. The same God who told me about her sickness was the same One who could heal her with just one word. His power remained the same yesterday, today, and forever. As His son, I had a right to burst into His presence and ask for Susan to be healed.
I prayed prayers like this: “Lord, heal my daughter Susan. You’ve given numerous promises to me about her life, none of which have happened yet. You saw this sickness when You gave those promises to me so I know the sickness has not taken You by surprise. The Bible states You are not a liar and I believe those words. Heal her now and fulfill all of Your promises for her life.”
I bombarded heaven day and night for my daughter. I continually asked the Lord to give me a word from His mouth so I could use it as a sword of the Spirit to battle in spiritual warfare. The Lord did not speak to me right away, but I kept pursuing Him like the woman did the unjust judge.
On the night before the scheduled surgery, I drove my pickup truck to Iowa City. I stayed overnight in one of the hospital’s waiting rooms, sitting in a recliner with a blanket covering me. The Holy Spirit whispered to my heart as I sat there with my Bible: “Isaiah 54:17.”
This was my sword of the Spirit.
I began praying: “No weapon that is formed against Susan shall prosper, and every tongue that accuses Susan in judgment I condemn in Jesus’ name. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication is from the Lord.”
I prayed all night and even though at times, I drifted off to sleep, my mouth went back to praying as soon as I woke up. I continued in this manner until 7 a.m. when I spent time in thanksgiving, praise, and worship. Waiting in His presence, not speaking a word, I had a vision of a Christian bookstore in Iowa City and felt an urgency to drive there. Did I know why? I had no clue.
This was 1995 and neither Google maps nor GPS were available as yet. So, I checked for a Christian bookstore using the old-fashioned way: a phone book. Looking at the stores in the area, I chose the one that felt the best to my spirit.
I drove there and walked in the door at 9:05 a.m. A pretty young girl with long hair stood behind the counter.
“May I help you?” she asked with a smile.
“The Lord sent me here, but I don’t know why yet.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
My prophetic gift kicked into gear at that moment.
“The Lord doesn’t want you to listen to your parents and others who are telling you to go to Bible school. The Lord wants to train you in His own way for your calling. Listen to His voice and not to other people on this particular matter,” I said.
Her hands covered her mouth and tears flooded her eyes.
“I felt this was what the Lord wanted me to do, but my parents and pastor insisted I was wrong. I asked the Lord to make Himself clear on what I should do. Thanks.”
We chatted a bit, hugged each other, and I left.
Later that afternoon, I walked alongside Susan as she laid on a bed being wheeled into surgery. A nurse stopped me at the doors.
“You can’t go any farther,” she said, pointing at the red line on the floor.
I nodded and stood there with tears streaming down my face. My daughter was going into surgery and I wanted to be with her. I turned around, headed to the waiting room, and sat with my parents and Susan’s mom. My eyes closed almost immediately and I fell asleep.
Five hours later, Susan returned to her room. The surgeon removed a noncancerous cyst, the size of two 2-liter bottles of soda from her abdomen and her appendix.
Susan continued to have a fever after her surgery, which frustrated her. Her doctor refused to allow her to go home until the fever dropped into the normal range. She phoned me one afternoon.
“Dad, will you pray I can go home tomorrow?”
“Okay,” I said, “you’ll go home tomorrow.”
Susan went home the next day, eighteen days after first entering the hospital. Her recovery took many weeks.
(Excerpt from The Hunt for Larry Who by Larry Nevenhoven, ©2014, Amazon eBook)
This testimony is a short compilation of all the chapters in this book. It’s not that I’m so unique or special because all believers can do this for their own children. But at the same time, I must admit there is a price for us parents to pay. It comes down to whether or not we want to pay it. You see, we must be willing to seek the Lord with all of our heart and follow Him in the same manner.
I believe most of us will say, “Yes, Lord.”
(The above is an excerpt from Praying for the Frozen Chosen: Our Children by Larry Nevenhoven, © 2016, Amazon eBook)
(Continued in Part 8)
Larry Who 
Do We Still Need Prophecy and the Spiritual Gifts?
A commenter on Dr. Michael Brown’s recent column, Charismatic Movement Needs Some Self-Policing: “The fruit of the Charismatic Movement has not been good.”
Like many critics, this person could only see the thorns of the Charismatic Movement and not the beautiful rose blossoms that have blessed numerous lives, including mine.
On May 20, 1985, I decided to commit suicide. This decision was based on my failure to put together a farm publishing company. All of my financial sources were maxed out, with the only untouched asset being a $125,000 life insurance policy on my life.
Suicide was not a problem because I was an agnostic. My not believing in God relieved me of worrying about Hell and God’s eternal punishment for my unbelief. It seemed like a good business decision on my part.
For some reason, I stopped at an insurance agent’s office that afternoon. Bill wasn’t my insurance agent nor was he a close intimate friend. Our relationship was built on my coaching his son for a teen baseball team the year before.
Bill invited me into his office. I sat down on a chair in front of his desk while he sat on the opposite side. We talked about baseball, but in the middle of our conversation, he paused and stared at me. “You’re thinking about committing suicide, aren’t you?” he said.
His words hit me like a sledgehammer. How did he know? It was my secret $125,000 payday. I was speechless. As I sat there, a vision played across my mind about my car ramming into a viaduct and killing me.
I wept. “How did you know?” I asked.
“Oh,” said Bill, “the Lord told me while we were talking to each other.”
His words shattered my unbelief. God was alive and He cared about me.
We continued talking for a while longer. He gave me a book to read: Power in Praise by Merlin Carothers. Bill stated how the small book had changed his life a few years earlier.
When I arrived home, I began reading the book. After finishing the first eighteen pages, I walked into the bathroom, closed the door, looked into the mirror and said, “Jesus, I’ve tried everything else and nothing has worked. I guess I’ll give You a try.”
Instantly, I was changed. I bowed down on the tile floor and worshipped my new Lord and King.
How a reader views my salvation testimony probably depends on which camp of Christianity the person presently sits in.
Eight to ten percent of American Christians might pooh-pooh my salvation testimony because they’re cessationists who believe that prophecy and the spiritual gifts ceased at the end of the apostolic age.
Another fifteen to twenty percent of Christians might jump up and down, saying, “Amen, brother.” These are the Pentecostals, Charismatics and others who wholeheartedly endorse prophecy and the spiritual gifts.
That leaves a balance of seventy to seventy-five percent of American Christians who are not in either of the first two camps. They have heard about prophecy but have not seen the spiritual gifts functioning in their own churches. For the most part, they do not hold any opinions one way or another on prophecy or the spiritual gifts.
What does the Bible say about prophecy and the spiritual gifts?
The Apostle Paul wrote the above verse in his first letter to the Corinthian Church around 55 AD. It explained the spiritual gifts and their proper usage.
The historian Eusebius pointed out the importance of prophecy in an event that occurred only ten or eleven years after Paul’s letter. A Messianic believer in Jerusalem prophesied that everyone should flee the Holy City to save their lives. The prophecy also reminded the believers of Jesus’ prophecy on the first Palm Sunday.
By early 69 AD, every Messianic believer had fled Jerusalem. Most went to a city in Jordan, named Pella, which was about sixty miles from Jerusalem.
In 70 AD, the Roman army led by General Titus sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple, slaughtering nearly a million Jews. This calamity fulfilled the prophecy spoken by Jesus on that first Palm Sunday.
The number of Messianic believers who fled Jerusalem were about sixty thousand in total. Those believers loved Jerusalem and their Jewish neighbors. They would have told everyone about the prophecy, but sadly, the Jewish army had won some battles against Rome when the prophecy was first spoken. Therefore, most Jews ignored the words of those Messianic believers and remained in Jerusalem. The majority of them died.
What if someone today prophesied that we should evacuate San Francisco or Chicago or New York City or Washington D. C. or wherever because the city was about to be destroyed?
Maybe you’re thinking something like this could never happen, right?
The Book of Revelation tells us about the horrific destruction which will occur in our world sometime in the near future. Half of the earth’s population will die during the seal and trumpet judgments. Most of the cities will be destroyed. If believers don’t take the mark of the beast, we won’t be able to buy or sell anything, including food and medicine.
So, how will believers survive without prophecy and the spiritual gifts?
Maybe our American-held belief of a pre-tribulation Rapture will be accurate. Maybe believers will be out of here before the bad stuff happens.
But just in case, it might be a good idea to develop an ear for prophecy and learn about the spiritual gifts now.
(The above post appeared as a column for WND.com on April 13, 2018 which can be seen here.)
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Filed under America, Christianity, Commentary, Faith, Gifts of the Spirit, Prayer, Prophecy, spiritual warfare
Tagged as Christianity, Commentary, Prayer, Prophecy, Spiritual gifts