It’s Happening-Chapter One

It’s Happening-A Generation is Crying Out, and Heaven is Responding, by William McDowell.
Excerpts from Chapter One-When He Walked Into the Room

McDowell starts Chapter One stating the following:
“What is happening in this season is precious. God is giving us a moment, opportunity, an invitation to experience and encounter Him, to go all in. The Lord wants to do something greater than anything we’ve experienced before. Can you imagine what would happen if we gave Him room to do it?” He then shares about his life as a child and how He had an encounter with God.

McDowell at 10 Years Old

McDowell shares that as a 10-year-old he had a hunger for spiritual things. He believes it was the Holy Spirit planting a seed in his spirit.

McDowell and his mother went to a Pentecostal Church in California when she was on a business trip and he got healed of asthma at a Wednesday night service. At the Sunday service McDowell got was filled with the Holy Spirit at the children’s service.

McDowell at 12 Years Old

Two years later McDowell was attending a church where there was a full-on outpouring of the Holy Spirit. People would stand outside in sub-zero temperatures waiting to get in. Listen to what he says next.

“Why? Because God was there. But after a while, people became comfortable and complacent. If we aren’t intentional, we can easily lose our awe of God and set up camp in the middle of the night. We can set up camp in the land of comfort. Whenever this happens, whenever we take the move of God for granted, things will change. Eventually, our church went back to normal, but the hunger and fire in me continued to burn.”

The God Chasers by Tommy Tenney

McDowell shares that the message and testimonies in the book moved him to be obsessed with wanting to possess the kingdom. He longed to be known by God and to pursue Him.

“He was who I wanted. I’ve had moments in my life where I’ve seen God move, but they were fleeting. I’ve been in services where His presence was intense, but eventually things returned to normal as if the amazing service didn’t even happen.”

God Moments

“As a worship leader, I’ve led worship during times where no one knew what to say or do because we were all arrested by the presence of God. I’ve also seen moments like those dishonored because something else was on the program.”

“We want to see it spread to our city, state, nation, and world. God is moving powerfully among us. He is moving in you. Do you want more?”

The Day My Baby Leaped

At the beginning of the chapter McDowell shared about the moment that John the Baptist leaped in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary entered the room pregnant with Jesus. He is going to tie that experience in Elizabeth that to an experience he had. I am going to quote several paragraphs in chapter one of the book It’s Happening.

“There are many different ways people become aware that God is planning to visit His church. The great revivalists and prophets of old had visions, dreams, and angelic visitations. That let them know that God was near. That’s not what happened with me. I felt my baby leap.”

“It was 2001. A couple of years after I had read The God Chasers. At that time, I was traveling as a music director and keyboardist. We were ministering in South Bend, Indiana at the church Lester Summerall once pastored. Before the night of worship began, I had a conversation with Lester Summerall’s grandson. I remember us talking about the move of God we wanted to see in our generation. After the night of worship was over, we were standing in the parking lot continuing to talk about the future move of God we were so desperate to see. As we were talking, I felt the strangest sensation.”

“I physically felt something move inside of me. I’ve never felt anything like it in my entire life, and honestly, it startled me. What happened next startled me even more. I physically felt something move inside of me. I’ve never felt anything like it in my entire life, and honestly, it startled me. What happened next startled me even more.”

“The person I was talking with said, dude, did you feel that? Feel what, I said, even though I had felt something. He said, did your baby just leave? I had never felt anything like it in my life, but in that moment, I knew that’s what had just happened. So I had to acknowledge it.”

“Mary and Elizabeth were relatives. And in a few days after her angelic visitation, Mary went to visit Elizabeth. As they greeted each other, the Bible says the baby inside Elizabeth leaped for joy.”

“After coming into contact with Jesus, after coming into contact with what was on the inside of Mary, John leaped as if he was saying, my reason for living has just arrived. That’s what happened to my friend and me that day. Jesus walked into our conversation and confirmed to us that we were going in the right direction toward our purpose, toward having our hunger for Him satisfied and our thirst quenched.”

“Just as it was with Elizabeth, my baby leaped when Jesus walked in. The desire God placed in me as a 10-year-old was alive. That leaping sensation was an announcement from heaven that God was coming to dwell among us, that I would see what I had been praying for.”

I am going to comment on what I just read from the book. Some listening are going to say “that is just weird.” That McDowell is just trying to line up his experience with the Bible. All I can say is that I have personally have had various things take place that confirmed I have been headed the right direction for ministry. I call them divine encounters, divine coincidences, divine confirmation. Before you become too cautious, too suspicious about McDowell’s story listen to what took place at his church, how revival broke out.

Back to the book. “My entire life has been lived to intentionally position myself for the day when God would walk in the room. Every service I led, every sermon I preached, every song I sang anywhere in the world was in anticipation of the moment God Himself would come and visit with us. The only thing I asked was God, let me be there. Let me see it. Let me be in the room when it happens. And He answered my prayer on May 22nd, 2016.”

“Service began like most others, but during worship, I began to feel unease in my spirit. It wasn’t because something was wrong. I just had the sense that something more was supposed to happen, but I didn’t know what. I preached the message God had given me, but even when the service was over, I still had that uneasy feeling and I didn’t know why.”

“It felt like a mixture of nervous energy, anticipation of the unknown, and uncertainty about what to do next. I remember saying to my best friend Caleb, who is the associate pastor at Deeper, I feel like God wants to do something more or say something different from what I preached, but I’m not sure what it is yet.”

“I asked him to handle the transition to the second service so I could press in to God and see what He wanted to do. As I began worship for River Two, that uneasy feeling would not leave me. In fact, it intensified.”

“The closer it came to my time to preach, the more intense the feeling became. But I still did not have a sense of what God wanted me to say or do. Then right before I got up to speak, it happened.”

“The baby leaped again. I experienced the exact sensation I had felt 16 years earlier.”

I want to stop right here with this narration. I want you the listener to think about what is taking place in this story. Remember when I said some of you would think “It is just weird what McDowell is saying about the sensation of a baby leaping in his stomach.” Well, what you call weird is happening again, right before a major revival breaks out at Deeper Fellowship Church. 16 years after the experience. Think about that, 16 years later. I want that to sink in. For 16 years, actually much longer than that, McDowell had a hunger for revival. He did not let that hunger end, he kept hungry, and It Happened. This get back to his description of what took place.

“Suddenly, I began to weep uncontrollably. As I stood in front of the entire congregation weeping, I thought, should I attempt to explain what I just felt, knowing how foolish it would sound for a man to explain to everyone that his baby had just leaped? Through my tears, I tried my best to tell them what had happened 16 years earlier. And while I was talking, other people began to weep.”

“My friend Caleb who knew what happenned 16 years earlier said to me it’s happening.”

“What began with me weeping uncontrollably, suddenly swept through the entire room. Without prompting or a single word spoken, people began to rush to the front of the church, falling on their knees, weeping and crying out to God. It wasn’t just a few. It was a majority of the room.”

McDowell states it was not a response to an altar call, not a response to a song sung. It was a response to the sensing of the presence of Jesus in the room. I do not know about you, but I and my wife Carmi have had various times in our life that we have sensed the very presence of Jesus where we were at. It is happened where I have had to stop driving and pull over to the side of the road. I have had to fall to my knees. I have had to lay flat on my face. Sadly, I have let life, I have let people’s negativity discourage me in an ongoing pursuit of a move of God.

Back to the book. “Everyone was aware and no one could do anything, but we stayed there and wept in the presence of God for literally hours. The service that began at 11:30 a.m. continued until 3:30 p.m. officially, but people stayed beyond that time.”

McDowell shares that he became concerned about what first time visitors would think. They came to church there was no worship, no preaching, the pastor is weeping, everybody around them is weeping. So he gave a soft invitation for people to leave and then the Holy Spirit convicted him to give an invitation for salvation. He said as people were leaving , “I stood up and said, wait, if you’ve been here this entire time and haven’t left, it is because you are clearly looking for Christ and he’s here now. If you want to surrender to him, now is your opportunity. To my surprise, people literally began to run to the front of the church and surrender to Christ.”

Friday Youth Night

On the Friday after the outpouring, was youth night. McDowell says that the Lord told him that He was going to show up at the service, that McDowell was just to share his spiritual journey. Suddenly it happened. Everyone started weeping. McDowell and the young adults pastor were literally unable to do anything but weep. This atmosphere was for 8 hours. McDowell says he has never been the same since this experience.

Caution

“Because what God did was so sudden, I wanted to make sure that we didn’t prematurely call what we were seeing revival. As a result, we began to say, it’s happening. And it was, and is. But I discovered something more. As of this moment, every sign that I’ve read about what marked the revivals that have taken place in the last four centuries, salvation, repentance, healings, has happened in our church.

It Has Happened

“This is revival. What God started doing for us, He will do for you. “If God is doing something anywhere in the world, the heavens are right for him to do it everywhere. When God pours out his spirit, the experience is not exclusive. Joel 2-28 says, He will pour out his spirit on all flesh. So I challenge you to allow that old desire for more of God to come alive again. Let the hope of a fresh outpouring for all nations and people come alive in you again.”

Our Response

“I have a question for you. What is all this worth to you? The presence, revival, God’s power demonstrating, hHs blessings manifested, the outpouring of His spirit. What are the hundreds of years of people crying day after day and night after night for revival, yet never seeing it come to pass? Worth to you? Is it worth enough for you to go after it? I’m going to level with you.”

“Pursuing God is an inconvenient, uncomfortable mission, but it is a priceless, eternal possession when you attain it like the treasure in the field. You can see Matthew chapter 13 verse 44 through 46 for this. The man in that parable sold everything to get enough money to buy the field.”

“That’s how valuable the treasure was to him. We’re being invited to take a risk to buy the field with the buried treasure. Not everyone will go all in on this.”

“There are a whole lot of people who have decided that revival costs too much. They are unwilling to go through what it takes to give up everything to possess it. Maybe you want to bargain as the rich young ruler did in Matthew chapter 19 verse 16 through 30.”

“Maybe you want to see how you can keep everything you have and get God. Jesus says you can. God requires everything and his movement in our lives depends on our level of surrender and our capacity to be filled with His spirit.”

“Giving up everything leaves room for the greatest amount of his power to become active in your life. What is it worth to you? If you want to see and be a part of the next greatest move of God and you want it so badly that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to see it, I invite you to pray this prayer with me. Father, give me the courage to buy the field.”

“There’s a treasure in it and I want it. I want what You have for me, my family, my church, my city, and my nation. I release everything to You that is holding me back from seeing You move.”

“The treasure I seek is You and nothing else will satisfy me. Come Lord Jesus. Amen.”

It’s Happening Chapter One Podcast

It’s Happening Book Review Series Podcasts
Introduction
Chapter One

To get a sense of the heart of William McDowell watch the attached video.

It’s Happening-Audible
It’s Happening Paperback

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