Fire of the Lord
|
Testimony of Bart De Wolf
How great things the Lord Jesus has done for me.
HEADLINES
I was born October 5, 1966 Belgium
I moved from Belgium to El Salvador in July 1996
God called me in August 1998 and left me a permanent reminder in my right eye
Convulsing me and crying out with a loud voice an evil spirit came out of me
Coincidences with 1998 hurricane Mitch and 2001 earthquake in El Salvador
Prayer answered with short circuit gives me the chance to hand out testimonies
Double coincidence with the day of the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York
Vision of a flame of fire in May 2011 exactly one year after my return to Belgium
INTRODUCTION
The New Testament tells us a very special event that happened in Jesus Christ's life:
One day Jesus arrived at the region of the Gerasenes and drove a legion of demons out of a man. When Jesus was leaving the man wanted to go with him, but Jesus did not let him, and said "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you". So the man went away, and began to tell how much Jesus had done for him; and all the people were amazed. (Mark 5:1-20)
On Friday October 23, 1998 I was in a hotel in San Salvador. My body rolled over the floor and shrieks came out of my mouth: an evil spirit came out of me. Don’t I have to tell everything now just like that Gerasene man did?
TESTIMONY
I was born on October 5, 1966 in Etterbeek (Belgium). Ten days later I was baptized according to the custom in the Catholic Church. On doctor’s advice my parents moved with me from Schaarbeek to Mechelen.
When I was about six years old while playing I got clayey sand (a kind of soil named “zavel” in Dutch) in my eyes. The day after I had double vision. Later I was operated on one eye. But I kept on having double vision. I started to wear glasses. From age twelve on I got prism glasses. Years later I was declared unfit for military service due to the deviation in my eyes.
I went to primary school in Mechelen from 1972 to 1978. Without much effort I always was the first or amongst the first of my class. In the 5th grade we went to classes at the sea-coast and in the 6th on a hiking tour in the Ardennes.
From 1978 to 1984 I studied Latin Mathematics at Saint Rombout College in Mechelen. Three years later I was amongst the last of the class. When I had to get my first bad written test signed by my father I almost committed suicide. I was very introverted. Often I stood alone on the playground, talking within myself. The classmates introduced me to music groups like ELO, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, and so on. With the class we went to London and to Paris.
I did the first Communion and the Confirmation. In religion classes at primary and secondary school we learned about the God of Israel and Jesus Christ. I thought a lot about that and asked myself many questions: if God really existed; if it was really true that he had created the earth; if Jesus Christ had really walked on earth so many years ago and had done miracles; if he had died on the cross and had arisen afterwards; and so on. But I did not get to belief then.
In October 1984 I started to study Computer Science at the Brussels Free University. There we did not have religion classes. I stopped thinking about God and Jesus after some time. In the first university years when the examination periods approached I badly feared that I would not qualify. I even intended to commit suicide if I would not pass. A friend of the family once lent us the book “Your erroneous zones” by Wayne Dyer. After I read it I decided never to commit suicide. In weekly magazines I read a lot about going to live alone. I intended to do that from the moment I would have a job. In July 1988 I graduated with great distinction as Master of Information Technology. But for many years I still had nightmares in which I was sitting in a big aula to do an examination and was not able to do it.
I started to work immediately. In October 1988 I rented a room. Quickly I had a relationship with a young female student who had a room in the same house where I rented. A year later together we moved into an old apartment in Schaarbeek. At the beginning of 1990 I found out something that broke my heart. We stayed together but in time emotions piled up inside me. In 1994 finally I summoned the courage to end that relationship.
I stayed living alone in the apartment in Schaarbeek. After work in the evenings I went to a café or a restaurant or to a movie theater. In weekends sometimes I went to dance halls. Sometimes I drove around for hours aimlessly to then get back home exhausted. Almost every night I drank alone at home. I also downed codeine pills. Sometimes I took a big glass of strong drink together with pills. I was addicted to sex and pornography. I went to the hookers, to erotic clubs and massage parlors, to adult movie theaters and sex shops. Alone at home I did all kinds of perversities.
I was fascinated with all the esoteric. I bought many books about this. I always read my horoscope. Also the Chinese horoscope attracted me a lot. I regularly consulted the Chinese oracle I Ching. I tried to follow the indications of Feng Shui. I did some Yoga. I bought a set of bottles of Bach Flower Remedies. I read the prophecies of Nostradamus. In those it was stated that there would be a war by the end of the twentieth century in the south of Europe as far as to the south of Belgium. I believed this and intended to move to a different region before that time.
Despite my libertine life I was not happy. One day alone at the apartment I said aloud to nobody: “I do not want all this garbage in my life anymore. I want to be happy. Now I will marry.” It was the end of 1995. Shortly afterwards in a Yoga class I met a woman from El Salvador (Central America). We started a relationship. In March 1996 I got myself a tattoo of an erotic drawing on my right shoulder blade.
When in May ’96 my Salvadorean girlfriend turned out to be pregnant we decided to marry and move to El Salvador. I quit my job, sold the car and took care of the necessary administrative matters. On July 11 1996 we took the plane to El Salvador. A week later we had our civil marriage and at the end of August we married in church. For a couple of months I was ill regularly and lost 20 pounds of weight. There were a lot of communication problems in our marriage. I was not working yet and we started to have money problems. By the end of December 1996 our first daughter was born.
Early 1997 an acquaintance invited me to a breakfast for businessmen. He did not want to tell me what it was really about. But with the financial problems I had the word businessmen sounded very interesting. In the end my curiosity won over my fear and I went. It turned out to be an event of the Fraternidad Internacional de Hombres de Negocio del Evangelio Completo. This is the Spanish speaking branch of the Christian lay organization Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International (referred to as the FELLOWSHIP below). This organization is active worldwide through local groups called Chapters. Personal testimonies are used to lead people to Jesus. I heard the vision of the organization and a testimony. At the end I repeated a prayer to reconcile to God.
In March 1997 I started in my first job in El Salvador. In March 1998 I went to a weekend seminar of the FELLOWSHIP. I was confronted there with truths like: “be strong and of good courage” from Joshua 1:9. We also learned how to structure a testimony. I came reborn out of this seminar. In the following months I searched for God with all my heart and made changes in my life. In events of the FELLOWSHIP I heard testimonies. In a church I heard sermons. I read in the Bible. I prayed. I tuned in to Christian programs on radio and TV. Many times over I again repeated the prayer of the repentant sinner. One day I tore up all my esoteric books and threw them away.
In August 1998 the Lord Jesus manifested himself to me! One night I was reading in the Bible before going to sleep. Suddenly it was as if the letters of the text were moving. I could not continue to read and went to sleep. In the middle of that same night I was waken up from my sleep. I sat up straight in bed. I saw a white, bright light. In the middle of it I saw an arm extended towards me, with the hand beckoning me. At the same time I heard a voice inside my head that said to me: “Come”. The next day I noticed that God had left me a permanent reminder of this nightly calling: a small blind spot below in my right eye. You can find a medical scan that confirms this here.
In September our little daughter got ill. In the second week of her illness I fasted every day and called on God. In the end I promised God that I would go share my testimony in all 36 Chapters of the FELLOWSHIP in El Salvador if He would heal her. Our little daughter recovered that same day. In the last 3 months of 1998 I went to testify at the 36 sites.
Sunday October 18, 1998 I was baptized by full immersion in water. In church I heard say that being baptized is a commandment. But I already had been baptized as a baby. And now I had to be baptized again? I wondered what I had to think about this. At the same time I did have the desire to let myself get baptized because some time later there was going to be the yearly convention of the FELLOWSHIP and I wanted to go there “clean”. One day I said in prayer: “Father, do you really want that I get baptized?” A couple of days later I slipped and fell in a large pool in the lavatory building of a bus station in the city of San Miguel. All of a sudden I was lying on my back in the dirty water of the flooded toilets. In the past during my perversities I had soiled my entire body many times. I understood that God now used something similar to make me see that I would be better off to choose the clean water of baptism quickly. The next day I went to church and got baptized.
On Friday October 23, 1998 an evil spirit came out of me! Five days after my baptism I was at the National Convention of the FELLOWSHIP in the hotel Camino Real in San Salvador. At the end of the evening event many people came forward to receive prayer. Suddenly a man came running towards me from the other side of the big room. When he was close to me he shouted "receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit". He pushed me on the chest with both hands and I fell back. I lay stretched out on the carpet and closed my eyes. Then another man came to pray for me. Suddenly my body started to roll over the floor and shrieks came out of my mouth. When that stopped I remembered my tattoo and I felt that I had to show it. I took off my jacket, tie and shirt, showed the tattoo and lay back down. Again the man prayed for me. And again my body rolled over the floor and shrieks came out of my mouth. At the same time I felt that a strange force was moving throughout my entire body. When my body stopped rolling and there were no more shrieks I felt that strange force present only in my hands. Then I knelt and aloud I begged forgiveness from the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit for everything I had done before. After that prayer that strange force also left my hands. I stood up and got dressed. What happened to me then I understood only a few weeks later when I read a story in the Bible about how Jesus casted out an evil spirit from a man: "Be quiet!" said Jesus sternly. "Come out of him!" The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. (Mark 1:25-26) The same had happened to me! I was very impressed with this and it filled me with awe for God.
Coincidence 1. Eight days later, Saturday October 31 1998, I testified live in a program of the FELLOWSHIP on the local TV station Canal 17. The same day hurricane Mitch hit El Salvador. I was astonished by this coincidence.
In May 1999 I completed a first full reading of the Bible. That same month our second daughter was born.
Coincidence 2. Friday January 12 2001 the Christian TV station Enlace-TBN broadcasted a video recording of my testimony from Costa Rica to whole Latin America. The next day, Saturday January 13 2001 there was a strong earthquake in El Salvador. I was very impressed with this second coincidence, albeit with a one day difference.
Fire of the Lord. Thursday June 28 2001 I took 80 copies of my testimony to hand out the next day to my colleagues at work. But I knew very well that I would not be able to stand up just like that and start handing out copies while everyone was sitting down and working. Around midnight I prayed to God lying face down. I asked him that he would give me the courage to hand out the testimonies and that he would do “something special”. On Friday June 29 in the afternoon there was a short circuit in the electricity connection of the data center of the company. There was no emergency generator. All information systems servers had to be switched off. With the database out of use the administrative personnel found themselves without work instrument for several hours. Quickly they stood up and started to walk around and talk. In the middle of this chaos I stood up as well and handed out the testimonies. Yes, God did “something special”, like in the story of Elijah against the 450 prophets of Baal when fire of the Lord fell. (1 Kings 18:36-39)
Double coincidence. On September 11, 2001 in the morning the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York were attacked. Also there was an attack on the Pentagon. A fourth airplane crashed in Pennsylvania. These drastic events have a double coincidence with my testimony: in the afternoon of that same day my first and only son was born; and my Salvadorean employer in those days, the company Delsur, at that time formed part of the company group PPL from the American state Pennsylvania where the fourth airplane crashed that day.
Healing of the double vision in my eyes. I had prayed many times for the healing of my double vision. At a certain moment I came to real faith. In my prayers I said: “Lord, I beg you to heal my eyes. I believe that if you would want to, you would heal my eyes right now. Maybe for one or another reason you don’t do it yet right away. But I believe that you can heal my eyes.” That faith was the first ingredient for my healing. The second ingredient was being a faithful witness for the Lord. I thought the coincidences I mentioned before were rather strong and at first did not come out with them. But in the FELLOWSHIP we are trained to testify. And the Holy Spirit acted upon me and gave me the conviction to publish them on my website. On Monday March 11 2002, fourteen days after I published the coincidences permanently, I was healed of the double vision in my eyes during a prayer with laying on of hands. Glory to God!
In September 2007 our third daughter was born. On May 4 2010 we moved from El Salvador to Belgium. Exactly one year later, on May 4 2011, on the way to my work with the car I had a vision: at an intersection in Mechelen to the right of the road near a tree I saw a blazing fire.
CONCLUSION
Dear reader: I was educated for a successful life. But I was flooded with and taken in by the offers of pleasure in this life. And I lost myself ever more and more. But Matthew 18:11 says: “For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.” Jesus intervened in my life. He saved me from my lost state and gave me a new life. He is willing to do the same for you. Will you let yourself get saved as well?
Please reconcile to God now.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Bart De Wolf
Master of Information Technology
Ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ
Witness of the God of Israel
Mechelen, Belgium
Facebook
Twitter @bart4jesus
Phone : 0032-465-974-219
Lifetime Member of FGBMFI |
5 25 125 250 500 1,250 5,000
You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the contents of this site, whenever you mention or place a link to "www.FireOfTheLord.org" or "www.bart-de-wolf.com".
Adoption of the contents must happen without commercial purposes.
You may not alter, transform or build upon the adopted content.
Other conditions mentioned in the CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Creative Commons License are applicable.