Seeing the Supernatural

by Jennifer Eivaz

  We seem to have a lot of different angelic activity in and around our church platform areas. Twice I was told about an angel with a harp standing on our downtown campus church platform. The two persons who saw this angel both told me about it the same week, but neither had talked to the other person about what he or she had seen. We do know from the Bible that angels play musical instruments; specifically, we know they play trumpets, which again fits their messenger role (see 1 Thessalonians 4:16). Although it was not perfectly clear why the angel on our platform appeared with a harp, we see in the book of Revelation that harps can be connected to intercessory worship and deliverance (see 1 Samuel 16:23; Revelation 5:8). I believe this angel came for one or both of these purposes.

  During our New Year’s Eve prayer service, one of our congregants saw angels coming down from heaven, carrying large baskets that were illuminated with light. She said the angels set the baskets at the front of the platform and then went back up. She peeked inside one of these illuminated baskets and saw kidneys, pancreases and fingers! She did not look in the other baskets but knew that they, too, were filled with body parts from heaven. She said, “They were there for the taking for all who had faith to receive them.”

  Brenda Crouch, married to Paul Crouch Jr., shared with me a powerful story about seeing an angel. Brenda was raised in a strong Christian home in Turlock, California, and had been taught well about the source of her help and protection. Growing up, Brenda had been elected by the student body as a cheerleader and was eager to fit in with the cool kids. She had been invited to a birthday party of another cheerleader and was excited to be included, although she had never attended any of their “parties” before. She assumed that a parent would be around when her parents dropped her off, but to her surprise, there were none. As the evening progressed, she learned that the single mother of this home was a practicing witch, heavily involved in the occult, and that her daughter had learned many of her mother’s incantations and séance practices. There was a shift in the evening when these fellow cheerleaders began casting spells on other kids, including some of the “jocks” (athletes). Brenda witnessed these girls’ eyes turning black and their odd behavior, as if they were out of their bodies, which immediately brought fear into the room. The leader of the pack called everyone to order and started a séance, lighting a single candle.

  “Some kids were laughing nervously, while others played along,” as Brenda described it. “I chose to abstain and sit in a chair outside the circle instead of on the ground with them.”

  As the leader tried to summon spirits, Brenda prayed silently, asking God to shut it down and protect her from any harm. At that moment, she felt the wings of a huge angel envelop her like a shield and the presence of the Lord fill her with tremendous courage.

  Right then, the leader got frustrated and barked at everyone, “Someone is not cooperating, and the spirits won’t reveal themselves!”

  Brenda spoke out and told them it was the power of God against the powers of darkness, and that the demons had to flee in the name of Jesus. “Through this I was able to witness about the saving grace of Jesus to a few of my classmates,” Brenda said. “I was marked as ‘different’ from that point on, though.”

  Brenda believes this was a manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s power at work in her life and her call to trust in a big God!

  2. You will feel them

  Have you ever felt a wind blow against you, only to realize that you were indoors? It was not the air conditioner, and that windy presence was, well, impossible. That wind was most likely an angel. Angels are described in the Bible as winds or flames of fire, and they can be felt as such. “And concerning the angels He says, ‘Who makes His angels winds, and His ministering servants flames of fire [to do His bidding]’” (Hebrews 1:7 AMP).

  I once felt an angelic wind in a church service during an unusual time of ministry. When my husband and I stretched out our hands toward a group of people standing in the altar area of the sanctuary, we felt a strong wind come into the room. This angelic wind blew an entire section of people at the altar to the ground.

  Another time, I felt two distinct winds blow through the window of my home. I am not sure how to explain this part, but I knew these angelic “winds” were from Central Asia. The following month, two women all the way from Central Asia requested to stay with us for a month. I believe their angels had gone before them to prepare the way.

  I have also heard many testimonies over the years from those who have felt intense heat come upon their hands from time to time. Did an angel cause this? Most likely, again based on the Scripture stating that God makes His ministering servants flames of fire. These people also believed it was a sign to them to lay their hands on others for personal ministry and physical healing. Along this same line, Alisa Cooper, one of my interns, explained how she sometimes feels “flames of fire in the atmosphere.” She has learned through repeated experiences that this feeling means someone is going to be delivered from demonic spirits.

  In the past, I have felt angels tap me on the arm and shoulder in an almost playful, curious fashion. It has always happened in church, and it took me a while to catch on. When it happened, I would turn to the right and the left and ask everyone around me, “Did you touch me?” I finally figured out that what I felt was not a human touch, but that of an angel, and angels often reflect the joyfulness of heaven.

  Pastor Oscar Caraballo, a pastor from Puerto Rico living in Vermont, noticed after a powerful angelic visitation how the angels kept touching the sweat on his forehead. He said, “They always make an effort to touch the sweat of God’s children because it is so wonderful to them.”1

  Angels also help “lighten” heavy atmospheres. Have you ever noticed in a worship service that it might begin with a stale, sometimes heavy feeling, but then it will lift and brighten quite noticeably? Angels forever worship Jesus, and being attracted to our worship, they will join in with us. Worship leader and songwriter Angel Ladd shared with me how she navigates heavy atmospheres: “I just keep pressing through it in praise and worship. I focus on what heaven is doing and saying, and I worship and declare from that place. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,” Angel said. “I lift high the name of Jesus and watch as the heaviness leaves the room and falls off the people.”

  I believe this is the working of angels, and it is very discernible. The Bible says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light (see Matthew 11:30). I am not sure how they do it, but angels help lift these yokes and burdens from us so we can worship Jesus without restraints.

  Finally, angels will strengthen us noticeably. Just before His crucifixion, Jesus went out to the Mount of Olives with His disciples and began to pray deeply. As He did so, an angel appeared to Him to strengthen Him. He could then pray even more deeply, being in such great anguish that His sweat was falling like drops of blood to the ground (see Luke 22:39–44). I have discovered that this kind of angelic strengthening is something you can feel and identify. Scheduled to minister at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, I had become ill a month before the event. It felt like a bad flu. I could not catch a full breath for days; neither could I recover my strength. I had several people praying for me, but I was not overcoming it. As I sat on the platform, still struggling just minutes away from speaking, I felt a tangible strength enter my body. It was sudden and dramatic, and I was healed at the same time. The Bible says that God is our strength (see Psalm 118:14), and I believe what happened to me was the work of an angel He sent. You can feel it that distinctly.

  3. You will hear them

  We can discern angels by their distinct sounds, but when we hear them, we most often will hear a message from them. By the meaning of their name, angel, which is mal’ak in Hebrew, we understand that their main role is to act as messengers. The Hebrew word mal’ak comes from a root word meaning to be dispatched “as a deputy; a messenger; specifically, of God, i.e. an angel . . .”2

  Philip heard an angel say
, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza” (Acts 8:26). Philip did as the angel told him, and he shared the Gospel with an important Ethiopian eunuch as a result. When Hagar had lost all hope and believed her son, Ishmael, was going to die, she heard an angel speak from heaven and say, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation” (Genesis 21:17–18). God then supernaturally provided for Hagar and watched over Ishmael as he grew up (see Genesis 21:19–20).

  One night as I was typing away on my computer, without warning I found myself gently laid down face first into my keyboard. Then I heard the voice of an angel, and he said this to me: “It’s time to connect with the South.”

  By the way, I did not see this angel. I only heard him. I also realize his message to me may sound very cryptic to you, but I knew exactly what it meant. It meant I needed to connect a key person in Central California with a key person in Southern California, and there is quite a long story behind it. There was only one problem. I did not personally know this key person in the South, and unless an angel went before me to prepare the way, this meeting would not take place.

  I thought to myself, Let’s test this and see if I really heard the Lord or not. So I sent a very unassuming email to the general inbox of this person I did not know and said something like, “Hi! You don’t know me, but my husband and I would like to take you and your wife to dinner, and we would like to bring some friends.” I named the friends, knowing we would still need divine intervention in order for the meeting to happen.

  Would you believe I received an immediate and favorable response? We all went to dinner, and the South “key” said he had agreed to meet us because he “felt the presence of God” on the invitation. This all took place when I discerned the voice of an angel.

  We also can discern angels by their distinct sounds. The prophet Ezekiel encountered some very unusual angels and wrote about their sounds: “When they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of many waters, like the voice of the Almighty, a tumult like the noise of an army” (Ezekiel 1:24 NKJV). Our associate pastor, Tom Hammond, would often hear wind chimes as a young child, but could never identify their source. Once he began having angelic visitations as an adult, Tom finally figured out these sounds were angels. Judy Harrill, another of our congregants, also heard the sounds of the angels upon the passing of her grandmother. She said she could hear beautiful singing and the sounds of harps playing in the hospital room.

  As I said earlier, seeing and discerning angels should be common and expected for us as New Testament believers. Still, not many people can say that they have encountered angels all that much, if at all. There is an element of faith needed to discern these angelic beings. That might be one reason for it. At the same time, we will not encounter angels until we are aligned to what God is doing.

  To the Angel . . .

  One day I saw it in the written Word that because of the angels, a church assignment is also a city assignment, and a city assignment is also a church assignment. I will explain that more fully in a moment. In fact, Ron and I are an example of it. We were not only going to Turlock to minister at a notoriously “religious” church; we also were on assignment to transform an even more “religious” city. As a matter of fact, you and I both have a similar purpose—to transform both Church and city—but this is something we can accomplish only with the help of the angels.

  In the book of Revelation, Jesus revealed to the apostle John His solemn and weighty instructions to seven different churches, each identified by their respective cities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. Each letter of instruction also contained an unusual preface that read like this: “To the angel of the church in [city] write . . .” (Revelation 2; 3). Let’s break that phrase down and look at it more carefully.

  Jesus told John to write specific instructions, addressing them first “To the angel . . .” We know that angels are powerful created beings assigned to serve God in heaven and to help the heirs of salvation on earth—you and me (see Hebrews 1:14). Angels also have specific assignments. Just to name a few, Michael the archangel specifically protects Israel, there are angels commanded to protect us personally, and there are angels assigned to children (see Daniel 12:1; Psalm 91:11; Matthew 18:10). Here in Revelation chapters 2–3, we see that an angel is assigned to the church of a specific city and that Jesus might even communicate His instructions, at His choosing, to these angels through His designated representatives, in this case John the apostle.3 This also shows us that angels are the spiritual administrators of the directives of God.

  Jesus then added, “To the angel of the church . . .” The word church in the original Greek language is the word ekklēsia, which is defined as a local Christian assembly. I have heard some define the word ekklēsia differently, even removing the thought that it is an assembly, and a local one at that. Although the word can definitely imply the Church at large, a word study of ekklēsia throughout the New Testament clarifies that it most often refers to a local assembly. Regardless, the Church is people and not a building, although the Church fails to be the Church if it never gathers together.

  In other words, amongst other things, these angels watched over and spiritually administered the regular gatherings of the believers as they worshiped Jesus together and ideally were equipped and released for ministry (see Ephesians 4:11–12). In these letters, Jesus addressed the churches before their respective angels, commending their strengths and righteous acts, as well as their sins and shortcomings. He also sternly warned the local ekklēsia of their potential removal if they did not change their ways—something the angel would facilitate if matters came to that.

  Finally, He added, “To the angel of the church in [the city] . . .” The city, then, would be the geographical borders of influence given to the designated angel and the local church. Here is where we see the local church and city as divinely intertwined because of an angelic being, and we see how the local ekklēsia, both individually and corporately, is the designated catalyst for city transformation.

  In a City on Purpose

  Do you wonder why you live in the city or town that you live in? God is behind such matters, much more so than we think. Our heavenly Father is the original inventor of cities. You could say that the first city was the Garden of Eden, and the last city, of course, is the New Jerusalem. He places people in cities, such as He did with Adam and Eve, and even calls people out of cities, such as He did with Abraham and Lot. For that reason, I believe that God has ordered your steps and placed you in your town or city on a divine assignment. You are there to bring His Kingdom, and you are there to destroy the works of darkness.

  A woman named Carol came to a recent prophetic institute at our church. She came to learn, but also to receive an anointing to see and discern the spiritual realm so she could be more effective. Carol had been divinely called out from her home in Houston, Texas, to the city of San Francisco. Her assignment? To pray for and love people and show them who Jesus is. A business owner, Carol had been visiting San Francisco when she became overwhelmed with the sound of crying and weeping while she was driving around the city. She investigated the sound but could not pinpoint it. Finally, she discerned it by the Holy Spirit. As she stood on a beach, she knew the cry was coming from the land, and it felt like an inner cry from people’s hearts. When she identified it, the anointing of the Holy Spirit came tangibly upon her. “It felt like honey, very thick and sweet,” she said. “And I can still feel it when I share this story.”

  After this experience, Carol spent a week in San Francisco to seek the Lord’s direction, and then she spent another month in the city to confirm it. God gave her a specific dream and a Scripture confirming her call to a city known as the “least churchgoing metro in America,” to bring His Kingdom there. Carol now engages in “friendship evangelism” and shares Jesus
in the context of her many friendships with atheist and other-religion friends. She said her next assignment is to gather people to pray for San Francisco and begin the process of healing the land, as the Holy Spirit directs her.

  When God called Ron and me back to Turlock, California, His plan was to transform a city by first transforming the local church. City transformation God’s way would only happen through His repurposed Church, which then would reactivate the angelic assignment. God’s purposes—and this includes the angels assigned to His specific purposes—will not happen past the faith of His Church on the earth. We can and often do limit God by our disobedience, which in turn restrains His angelic helpers (see Psalm 78:41 NKJV). This is true of any city. Ian Carroll, senior leader of Greater Chicago Church, shared a similar thought after he saw the “angel of Chicago.” He said the angel had remained dormant for decades, but was reactivated in his assignment in 2011, in response to the fervent prayers of the local church for the city (his church, as well as others).4 I have experienced something similar. I have seen the “angel of Turlock,” and it is my belief that God reactivated this city’s angel to his assignment once the local church stepped back into its purpose for our city.

  I believe the absence of angels is due largely to the Church, both individually and corporately, not being aligned to its proper assignment. Angels come to help us as we obey the Lord, not as we carry out our own whims. That is a tough pill to swallow, but discernible angelic activity tells us where God is and what He is doing.

  I once was in Tiānfǔ Square in Chengdu, China. (Our interpreter translated Tiānfǔ as “heavenly government.”) The square was heavily saturated with police, and you could feel the unrest on the land. I was told that radical Buddhists had used the square as a continual place of government protest, with some setting themselves on fire to make their point. As we prayer walked the square, I became quite irritated when I discerned the lack of angelic presence. I thought to myself, Why are there no angels? The lack of angels was a message that something was amiss. I expressed my irritation to our host, and we began to pray for God to release His angels to that place (see Matthew 26:53). As we continued walking the area, I was amazed and surprised to see a pillar erected to the “Angel of Harmony.” That was a powerful confirmation! God had already built His strategic plan into the land, even giving title and description to what He wanted established. Nevertheless, it needed the local church to come into alignment with His plan for the city if the angels were going to be released.