God's Personal Assurance

May 2011

A Divine Conversation

This amazing miracle happened during the sermon I presented on 7 May 2011 regarding my "Baptism Stone". It was a day when I had to preach of God's faithfulness and promise of a baby whilst I was literately going through a miscarriage (see the story on Fighting The Good Fight Of Faith). God's presence filled the whole church as He gave me the miraculous strength to preach. For one woman in the audience, a miracle was happening to her too, but neither she nor I knew until we happened to talk about it 10 months later.

I had seen this woman around in the church on several occasions, but had never engaged myself in any form of conversation with her, only an exchange of smiles, hugs and wishing each other well. God had given me so many new friends, so I was always caught up talking to someone else and never really had time to get to know her. Then just in the last two weeks, somehow, she and I found ourselves chatting in long conversations. At the end of one of these conversations, she casually mentioned that she enjoyed my sermon on the "Baptism Stone" that I gave on May the 7th. That was 10 months ago, and yet she was talking about it as if it was just yesterday because I saw tears welling up in her eyes; things seemed to be still fresh in her mind. I was curious, so I asked her specifically what message in that sermon had touched her? Then she explained...


A Message of Assurance

That week leading up to 7th May, she had had a very hard week. Her faith was questioned by several people, and they had ridiculed it. They made her doubt her beliefs. They had made her doubt God's love for her, and they made her question if indeed she belonged to God. That day on May the 7th, she was held up going to church, so when she arrived late; she missed half of the sermon already. She sat at the back and started to listen. Suddenly something I said caught her ears. I had been speaking about my baptism stone and apparently I had given the following scripture in my sermon:

Revelation 2:17

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.


Then she felt the Holy Spirit spoke to her to tell her that her name has been written on a stone, a place is reserved for her in heaven, and she does belong to God. She felt God's love washed over her. When she got home that day, she looked at the scripture again and she cried her eyes out - thanking God for His love and for accepting her as one who belongs to Him.

I nodded my head as I was listening to her saying all this, but in my mind I was thinking about my presentation slides that I had used in my sermon that day. I thought,"... hmm, I do have a slide about Revelation 2:17, but I'm sure that I had taken it out of the sermon that day".


Suspicion Confirmed

So, as soon as I got home, I rushed to my computer, and I looked at my slides that I had for this particular church. Sure enough, there was no such slide! I had preached the stone sermon in many different churches with Revelation 2:17 on one of the slides. For this particular church, however, I had removed that slide in order to cut the sermon shorter (see slide opposite).

But apparently, God had put it back in there especially for her!

I had certainly not spoken about Revelation 2:17 that day, but she heard me talked about it. Thus, I can only say, it wasn't me, it was God! God had spoken specifically to her to give her His personal assurance of His love for her. What an amazing day. To God be the honour and glory!


Moral of the Story

Next time you listen to a sermon, God could be talking to you through that preacher without even the preacher knowing it; and even with a slide visible only to you! :)

© Elma Larsen. All rights reserved.

© Image by Elma Larsen