Faith Building with Chris Mikkelson #81

What would you do if you were scheduled to preach to several hundred thousand people and just as you began to speak a torrential rainstorm began?  If you are Chris Mikkelson you pray and tell the rain to stop in Jesus’ name.  He did and the rain stopped.  This is just one of many faith building stories Chris shares on this edition of “Finish Strong.” 

 Chris has seen God heal people in dramatic ways.  He has also witnessed the persecution of Christians turn into great revival.  Tune in and hear his powerful stories and learn why he believes Jesus is coming back very soon!

Transcript

Dan Wheeler: 0:02

Thanks for joining us on Finish strong. We've got another great episode today with international evangelist Chris Michaelson. We had him on last week. And it was powerful. I'll tell you, the Lord is using this young man in amazing ways. And he has some exciting stories to share with you that will build your faith. I'm your host, Dan Wheeler, along with Terry Steen and Brian Rowland, guys, I don't know about you, but after last week, I'm really looking forward to this episode.

Terry Steen: 0:30

Yeah, I think it's gonna be great. And I'm looking forward to the stories that will maybe get us out of our sheltered United States lives and see what's really going on out there in the world.

Brian Roland: 0:43

Yeah, I agree with you, especially after hearing him speak left for last week when he was telling us I know this is just gonna blow our minds today. I just can't wait to hear.

Dan Wheeler: 0:52

Yeah, well, let's bring him on the show. International evangelist. podcaster. TV show host Chris Michaelson joins us. And also, I want to point out, he's just a great, humble, regular guy. God is using an amazing in amazing ways. Chris, welcome back.

Chris Mikkelson: 1:09

Hey, thanks for having me, guys. It's an honor to be with you guys today.

Terry Steen: 1:14

Yeah, we want to begin to just kind of pick your brain about some of the great stories that you can recall or remember or the over the course of your ministry that

Dan Wheeler: 1:26

he's a young guy, of course, he can remember.

Terry Steen: 1:30

I shouldn't have to preface that with him. We have to write him down now. Exactly, exactly. But we want to build our listeners faith by hearing some of the things that have been going on in your ministry. And if you could think of a story that involved God intervening or a miracle that took place where you really knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that was God in action. And yeah, come to mind.

Chris Mikkelson: 2:02

Man, you know, there's so many and it's really hard to pick from, you know, pick just one. I'm going to try to do too quickly for you guys. If that's all right, sir. You know, one, I think is is just more or inspiring. The other I think can can be a little bit more applicable to, to anyone and in everyday life. The first is we were doing a crusade in India years ago. And it was a Multi Night crusade where we would start, you know, on like a Wednesday night. And then we would go Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night. And I think it was the first night of the crusade, if I'm not mistaken, it was very early. In our time of doing this crusade, where they were calling for rain every single night, the weather forecast was like, you know, 98%, rain, something like that every single day. And so we were really praying and had our intercessors praying against the rain. And that day, it wasn't really raining. The crowd came, I grabbed the microphone, it hadn't been raining yet. And as soon as I grabbed the microphone to start preaching, I mean, these massive drops just started coming. And I just turned, I thought, you know, the Lord's given us authority over all things. In fact, in Genesis, when Adam and Eve were in the garden, the Lord gave that authority over Adam, to be able to be over in authority over the land. And, and, you know, it's a long teaching on that. But I knew that I had the authority to even stop the rain. And so I commanded the rain to stop. And I mean, it was big drops of rain coming down. The people you can tell we're starting to get nervous. Maybe we need to run for shelter. And I've been in a crusade before when it rained, and my crowd ran for the hills. He had no they ran for cover. And, and so the rain started coming and I turned to the microphone, turned to the sky on the microphone, I set in the name of Jesus and command the rain to stop. And immediately as soon as I said, Amen, the rain stopped and there was a there was a gasp over the entire crowd. And most of these people were Hindus, and and they're like, oh my goodness, this guy, you know, you know, in their minds. They're thinking this guy works miracles course I gave all the glory to Jesus. And I preached the gospel. As soon as I was making the altar call for salvation. I had just started making the altar call again. These massive drops this time, they started to be more persistent. And I did the same thing all over again. I command the rain to stop right now in Jesus name, Amen. And as soon as I said, Amen, the rain stopped again. And this time I said, and don't come back and Jesus. You know, it didn't rain that whole week, the pastors from from that part of India, were all laughing because they said in the evangelist said, you know, and don't come back again. And it hasn't rained all week. And that testimony began to spread all over town, about how you know how this man stopped the rain. But every night we gave glory to Jesus, and many 1000s of people receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. That week, I really felt like that was absolutely the Lord, for it to happen twice like that, right? When I said, Amen. The other the other one that that I think could encourage people is in the middle of COVID. In 2020, all of our crusades had gotten shut down because of COVID. And my heart was burning to preach the gospel, I thought, if I get one chance to go back to Pakistan, and preach the gospel, as soon as they let me, I'm going back, and I'm doing a big crusade. And some people might think that that would that would be too dangerous, or, you know, putting people in danger. But my heart is, these people are going to die and go to Hell, I've got one last chance to share the gospel with them before they do. And so the opportunity came at the end of 2020, to be able to go and do our first crusade in the COVID. Era. In Pakistan, well, we had heard that you would have to get a test to go to Pakistan, a COVID test, and a COVID test to come back as well. And, you know, getting a test here is not a big deal. But going there, we had heard that they didn't have, you know the necessary tools in Pakistan to do these tests. And so we had heard from some of our friends who got tested in Pakistan, that when they put that long stick up into your brain to test you for COVID. There wasn't even a cotton swab on the end of the plastic stick, it was just a plastic stick, they were showing Oh. And one of our friends said sure her nose was hurt very bad for like, several weeks after getting this test. And so I thought, Okay, well, we really need to pray and take a position of faith that somehow God is going to intervene in this situation. And and so the day came, we were in Pakistan, we had to go to the doctor, and I'm thinking, Okay, what is I've never been to a hospital in Pakistan before or a clinic. I'm thinking it's probably going to look like something out of like a horror movie and oh, gee, grungy, and, you know, we walked in and my my horrors came true. Dark, grungy, good place and, and that we walked in, we went to register for getting our tests done. And after we registered at the front desk, the nurse said, Okay, go around the corner, and the doctor is there and he's waiting for you. We walk around the corner. And there's this young doctor, he probably just graduated from medical school in his early to mid 20s, I suppose. And or mid to late 20s. Maybe. And he sees me and he goes, Oh, evangelist, oh, he had recognized me because I'm on TV all over the nation of Pakistan. And he goes, evangelist, oh, please come here. I would be so honored to test you and to take care of you. And he was a Christian. I don't know he must have been one of the only Christian doctors in Pakistan. Christianity is only 2% in the entire nation. Wow. And not very many of them are going to school to become doctors. Here. This young man is he's a doctor. He's a Christian. He just so happens to be at the one clinic that we've picked out of 1000s of clinics we could have gone to he was at that one clinic. On that particular day. He recognized me knew that I was an evangelist. And I said to him, I said, I said Doctor, please don't hurt me. And please don't hurt my wife because you could hurt me but my wife we're gonna have a problem. And I said, Please take care of it. She said no problem. I won't push it all the way into the grave. Right here at the front. He opened up the swab and it had cotton on the end of it. Way too good. Jesus, I just want to encourage people, just trust the Lord. You know, we don't have to get into so much fear and worry, you know, sometimes we we worry ourselves half to death. But you can trust the Lord. He's with us even in the little things. Amen.

Brian Roland: 10:15

Chris, I want to I want to talk to you a little bit about healing a healing story, because she saw my sister come in and around, she had Ms. And my mom said, I'm not accepting this and laid hands on her. And she felt heat from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet for five more feet. But she wasn't healed instantly. It took a little progression over the next six, nine months, but she was healed completely. Wow. And I can imagine the stories you've have are something that just happens instantly where you're in.

Chris Mikkelson: 10:48

Yeah, you know, we've seen it all we've seen progressions in healing. We've seen miraculous healings. You know, we've seen more healings than I can count in Pakistan. We just had a young boy, his parents brought his Muslim parents brought him to the crusade in Pakistan. He was crippled from birth, never been able to use his legs before. And they brought him to the crusade. I preached a short message on healing, and boom, he jumped up and he started walking around, running around, completely, totally healed. And as a result, his entire family ended up giving their life to Christ and getting saved. Because of that miracle. You know, and I've, we've seen that happen so many times in our crusades, but a lot of people think like, okay, that happens over there. And then they give me all the excuses of why miracles happen in Pakistan, or in third world countries. You know, I've heard everything but people are more desperate, they don't have insurance, they have more faith that God is moving into crusade, he wants people to get saved, like, I've heard every single excuse. And the reality is the same Holy Spirit that can do the miracle. And Pakistan can do the miracle, right here in America, just like your your, I believe it was your sister or your mother or your sister. Yeah. And so, you know, we were I was actually at a funeral. Just about a year and a half ago, in Minnesota back where I grew up in a small small town of about 1500 people. And I was at this funeral. And there was an older gentleman that came through is actually it was my mom's funeral she had, she was elderly woman, she passed away. She had cancer but ended up passing away and I was at my mom's funeral. And we were at the wake service the night before the actual funeral, the funeral Saturday, the evening before they had the reviewable or the week service. And I'm standing there at the at the altar, and there's a long line, hundreds of people walking through that evening, just paying their respects to the family. And I knew everybody because it's a small town, you know, everyone in this town. And so this elderly gentleman walks through and I knew this guy. This is Lawrence, and I knew his first name, last name. I used to play with his kids on his farm growing up. He's an old Norwegian farmer from Minnesota. And so I knew him and I said, Lauren, what happened? What happened to you because he was all crippled over with a cane. He could barely walk. He could barely talk. He just barely got out a couple of words. And then his wife had to finish his sentence. And he said, I contracted Parkinson's disease. And he couldn't talk. He couldn't hardly walk. And his wife, Kathy began to tell me 15 years ago, Lauren had gotten Parkinson's disease. And it has been escalating very rapidly over the last 15 years, especially the last couple of years, it's only getting worse. He's taking 15 pills of medication every single day, for this disease is not getting better, it's only getting worse. And here I am in a funeral. It doesn't seem like some, you know, anointed moment to pray for the sick. You know, I didn't have the Hallelujah Chorus behind me. There was there is no anointed presence of the Lord worship, you know, filling the, you know, creating this atmosphere of of the miraculous. There's nothing like that. But out of my mouth, I was surprised. It just came out. I said, Can I pray for you? And I was kind of surprised. Like, I really just say that at a funeral, you know? And he said, Sure, well, the Lord's not a Pentecostal. There's not one Pentecostal church in my entire hometown. There's only like, there's like four Lutheran churches, a Baptist church and a Catholic church. And that's it and weren't as part of one of the Lutheran churches there. I said, Can I pray for you? He said, Sure. And he's a very devout Christian. He's a Gideon, you know, putting the Bibles in hotel rooms and he loves the Lord and He loves the word of God. But he's not a Pentecostal. I said, Can I pray for you? He said, Sure. So I laid my hand on him. I said, In the name of Jesus, I command all Parkinson's disease to go right now in Jesus name be healed of Parkinson's disease. In Jesus name. Amen. Well, now the line has really stopped up because I've taken more time than I should have went, Lauren. I didn't have time to check him, write them in there. I said, please let me know what happened. He said, Okay. He got outside the church. And he said, I got he wasn't more than just a few minutes away from church. And he said, The Holy Spirit spoke to him and said, now you've got to show some faith. Now, this is not a Pentecostal. This is not somebody, you know, who, who is frequently saying, The Lord said this. And the Lord said, this, this is not, you know, his DNA. And he says, The Lord's The Lord said to it to him, you've got to show some faith. He said, Well, I think I know what that means. He said, I need to start reducing my Parkinson's medication, which everyone says you can never do. Once you get on it, you have to stay on it. And he said, but I did secretly. And he said, he started reducing it by one pill. And, and he said, I started feeling better. So then I reduced it a couple more pills the next day, and I started feeling better. And again, and again and again, over the course of 10 days, he got off all Parkinson's disease medication, and he was completely symptom free of all Parkinson's disease, in Jesus name, because he texts me told me, you know, what had happened. And then he went to a follow up meeting with a neurologist, like a couple of months later, in Fargo, North Dakota, and went to this hospital met up with a neurologist. They did a brain scan on him. Two different specialists over the course of a couple of months. Both said, we do not see any evidence of Parkinson's disease at all. pletely healed apart. Yeah, absolutely. Amazing.

Dan Wheeler: 17:27

That's a great healing story. Chris, I've got to ask you, these next couple questions are just kind of the lightning round. First of all that that picture over your shoulder? Is that from one of your crusades in Pakistan?

Chris Mikkelson: 17:40

It is yeah.

Dan Wheeler: 17:41

How many people show up to these crusades, just to give our listeners an idea.

Chris Mikkelson: 17:47

We'll have anywhere on average, somewhere around 100,000. In that particular crowd, we had just over 200,000 in attendance in one service,

Dan Wheeler: 17:59

my goodness, and yet you said less than 2% or only 2% of Pakistan are Christians. Yeah, that's the

Chris Mikkelson: 18:07

official numbers. We believe it's a lot higher now. Because of all the evangelism that's been happening there.

Dan Wheeler: 18:12

How do you get in there? Yeah. How did you? Yeah. Do you have a big organization that goes out? Or do you through the church van? Ministry?

Chris Mikkelson: 18:25

Actually, we do have a bus ministry in Pakistan, will rent hundreds of buses 500 buses. Wow, you know, or more, and we send them around the entire city. People are very, very poor in Pakistan. Most people don't have their own vehicle. If they are able to own a vehicle, they might own a small 70 cc motorcycle, and five or six family members will all right on the same. Wow, you see it all the time carrying refrigerators on them all kinds of stuff. So

Dan Wheeler: 19:06

oh, well, my question I was leading up to was the idea of persecution. Is there persecution of Christians in some of these parts of the world where you're ministering?

Chris Mikkelson: 19:17

Yeah, there are Pakistan is open door.com has Pakistan listed as the fifth most persecuted place for Christians to live in the world? And it's a head of a lot of the Middle Eastern countries like Iran and Iraq and Saudi Arabia. But yeah, there's a lot of persecution in Pakistan. The unique thing about Pakistan is that Pakistan there's a freedom of religion. They're not under Sharia law. They have their own version version of Islamic law. And in their law, it allows Christianity to be preached openly outside of have the four walls of the church. That's why we're able to do big crusades like that and preach the gospel legally, we actually get a permit from the government to hold these we call them festivals. We don't use the word crusade. That's a bad word for Muslims. And but yeah, but so yeah, the government totally allows Christianity to happen. It allows us to preach the gospel. But there's a lot of persecution in Pakistan. The Taliban are there. ISIS is there. And so there's a lot of challenges for us to do this. But we hire the local police to provide security at our crusades, and they come and they provide security. Wow, we also have Christian security. So yeah, it's it's a long answer. But yeah, there is a lot of persecution that's happening there. But God is doing amazing things in Pakistan.

Terry Steen: 20:52

Chris, we talked a couple of weeks ago, about persecution in one of our podcasts, and we came to the conclusion that sometimes it takes that persecution to bring revival and bring Christianity into these other places. And we see statistics that kind of reinforce that. Are you seeing that on a very practical level as you're over there anything you can share with us as to that relationship between persecution and revival?

Chris Mikkelson: 21:24

Yeah, absolutely. There's definitely a relationship between persecution and revival. We've seen that all through history, that when the church is persecuted, it's when the church grows the most is under immense persecution. And that's absolutely what's happening right now. In Saudi Arabia. There's a huge movement of underground evangelism happening underground churches in Saudi Arabia. And it's happening in Pakistan. The churches are growing like crazy. We're training pastors like crazy. There's places where remote parts of Pakistan where they're, they're literally ordaining people to be pastors because they don't have enough. And they're ordaining people that are illiterate, who don't even know how to read. But they love Jesus, and they love people, and they're saved. And, you know, and then they're teaching them how to read by teaching them the Bible, and how to read from the Bible. I mean, it's absolutely amazing. What's happening in that part of the world. So yeah, absolutely. When when immense persecution comes, that's when we see often the church grow the fastest. Hmm.

Brian Roland: 22:38

One last question of trust, do you believe we're living in the last days? And I think the reason I ask that is because with persecution comes revival. And I know there's going to be the revival that we're looking forward to. And that's, that's why I brought that question.

Chris Mikkelson: 22:52

Yeah, absolutely. I absolutely believe we're in the last days, we may be in the last minutes of the last day. But last second, so the last day, I don't know. Actually, I do know I kind of scary, but I actually know when the end is going to come. Did you know that? Oh, this.

Dan Wheeler: 23:17

News with this,

Chris Mikkelson: 23:19

turn, brother me now. The Bible says in Matthew 2414, and this gospel of the kingdom will come will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come right when this gospel of the kingdom is preached in all nations, then the end will come I really believe that we're on the cusp of bringing the Gospel I mean, if we haven't already, we're, we're right about there. Where were the last places on the planet, the last unreached villages and, and places on the planet are hearing the gospel and the gospel is going forth. And I really believe that we are in the last moments of the last days, and I'm excited, I really believe that God is pouring out His Spirit. In these moments. I believe that, you know, if you look at the statistics, the it looks really grim when you look at church statistics, but when you see what God is doing, and I really believe that there's there's kind of a separation happening in the church between the the lukewarm dead church and the church that's on fire. And there's becoming a bigger, a bigger Valley in between these two types of churches. And and I think that that is actually the Lord that, that that's happening. The Lord's allowing that to happen to set apart a church that's really on fire for him. A church that's really full of Holy Spirit that's passionate about evangelism. I believe it's happening. And I see evangelists raising up now more than ever before. I'll tell you when I got when I got into Bible school, and God started calling me to be an evangelist, I was going on youtube searching all over YouTube, to try to find evangelists who are preaching the gospel. You know, there's a lot of people that say, I'm an evangelist, but they don't ever preach about Jesus or preach the gospel. They just, I tend to rate and I was on YouTube trying to find evangelist preaching the gospel so I could learn how to preach the gospel. And all I could find were old black and white videos of Billy Graham, view videos of Reiner bunkie at that time, and that was it. There weren't very many evangelists really preaching the gospel. And there still are today. But I'm seeing a whole new group of young, spirit filled Holy Ghost evangelists, who are raising up right now. And I'm mentoring a lot of them. And they're getting excited, and they're going to the streets in America, they're going around the world preaching the gospel, I really believe we're at the very beginning of that last revival before the return of the Lord.

Terry Steen: 26:18

Exciting. Boy,

Dan Wheeler: 26:19

that is exciting. And that is a great way to kind of wrap things up here, Chris, boy, what a joy. God is using you in so many ways. And I'm sure that if you went back 1015 years, you would have never imagined God was going to

Chris Mikkelson: 26:35

get a chance. Yeah.

Dan Wheeler: 26:40

Some of your friends from the old days would say No way. That's Chris Michaels.

Brian Roland: 26:44

Sounds like our old days when you

Dan Wheeler: 26:48

thank the Lord that He can use us, he can change us. He makes all things new. And just God bless you. We will be praying. And I mean that we don't just say it, we will be praying for you and your ministry that continued to grow.

Chris Mikkelson: 27:03

Yeah. And man, and if you guys want any more information, anyone wants information, how to follow us, our websites, Chris michaelson.com. And you can get all the links to everything there. But guys, honestly, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. It's been an honor and a joy to be with you guys.

Dan Wheeler: 27:21

Yes, we've enjoyed every minute of it. Thanks, Chris. We should say Michelson is with two K's em. Que el sol. Well, wow, what a show guys. We wrap this up, we talk about finishing strong. That is the name of our podcast. And when you see what's going on around the world, and that Chris just said, Lord, here I am, and I want to preach, and he preaches the gospel. That's what we've got to stay with. That's what Billy Graham Graham preached. And 10s of 1000s and millions came to know him Boy, that that excites me. What about you guys? What are your takeaways?

Terry Steen: 28:03

Yeah, I think it's, it's such a simple message. And sometimes we make it complicated. And you know, as we get older, we've talked about it all the time, how people are just kind of kicking back too much. And we have to be courageous and understand and know that that same Holy Spirit can work through us that's working through Chris, in our day to day life with anybody we come in contact with, whether it's to move them forward to salvation, whether it's to pray for a headache, and see a healing take place in their life, that may be exactly what they need to accept the Lord. Those things can be done through us today, here in America, if we would just believe and have the courage to step out and see it happen.

Brian Roland: 28:52

Yeah. And I'll tell you, when he's talking about evangelists and what we're saying that get get to get back to that. years ago, as you guys know, I worked with Rex onboard ministry. And one thing Rex always told me he says, I people want to give me doctorates and things like that, because I'm just a little I'm a country preacher, and I'm preaching salvation. Every he goes, Brian, if you ever listen to any of my servants, it always is about salvation. And he was right when I started really paying attention. Even though I was running a camera, I was paying attention. I'm going, Man, this is all about salvation. And he always had an altar call. He always wanted to bring people to the Lord whenever he could, but he did that every every sermon he preached,

Dan Wheeler: 29:30

if you're listening and you're saying, Boy, I don't know if I'm saved, well, you can be saved. There is no other name under heaven given above, given among men whereby you must be saved and that name is Jesus. In to say, Jesus, I'm a sinner. I'm sorry for my sins, please come into my heart. I accept what you did on that cross. By Your precious blood. I am made whole I am made new I'm being I'm clean, and then turn from your sin and start living for God, if you have any questions about that, contact us here or at our website, eff faith. That org of faith.org guys great episode. It's been so great being with you and being with Chris. I hope you have a wonderful day and a wonderful week. Thanks everybody for joining us and we'll see you next time for another edition of finished strong.

John Matarazzo: 30:26

Thank you for listening to finish strong. For more information about finished strong and fearless faith. Check out their website F faith.org. Make sure that you rate and review this podcast to help more people accomplish their God given purpose so that together we can finish strong