The Holy Spirit and His Gifts | Page 128

I said, "I told you if you didn't betray my confidence, I would put more trust in you. However, you did betray my confidence. I told you to be home at 10:00 last Tuesday night and you didn't come in until 11:30." "Well, we were late getting our plans made," she said. I said, "You sat out in front of the parsonage for thirty minutes. Besides that, you were over there teaching those young folks new dance steps." "Who told on me?" she asked. "The Holy Ghost told me. I was lying in bed with my eyes closed when suddenly in a vision, I was over at your girlfriend's house. I will tell you exactly how the furniture was arranged." As I told her how it was arranged, her eyes got big and she began to stammer and stutter. I said, "The Lord didn't lie on you, did He?" "No," she said, "He didn't lie. But they didn't know some of these new steps and I just thought I would show them." I said, "But you have betrayed my confidence, so for thirty days you won't go anywhere except to school and to church." Before the thirty days were ended, she was saved and baptized with the Holy Ghost, and she hasn't been in trouble since then. The Word of Knowledge As an Aid to Prayer One of the greatest areas where the word of knowledge can be used is as a mighty aid in effectual prayer, either for God's servants in distress or for those in need of spiritual help. I once read of a minister and his wife who took a teenage boy into their home after their own daughter was grown and had become a missionary. They wanted to help this boy because he had no parents. They got custody of the boy through the judge because he had been in some trouble and had become a ward of the court. The boy got saved and was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he did all right in his Christian walk for a while. After he finished high school, however, he had a tendency to fall back into some of his old ways, and this caused great grief and concern to the minister and his wife. One day the boy went to look for a job. The pastor's wife was at home washing dishes when suddenly she felt compelled to pray. She didn't know what it was all about, but she stopped right in the middle of her work and began to pray fervently. While praying in the Spirit, this mother had a vision and saw the young man downtown and he was about to go into a pool hall. In those days pool halls were dark dives. She was concerned and prayed earnestly for him. Then in the vision, she saw him as he got about three feet inside the door. Suddenly he stood up straight, turned around, walked back out the door, and continued walking down the street. Then the vision ended. She began to sing and rejoice in the Spirit because she knew she had won a victory. Then she got up from praying and went back to finish her dishes.