On Thursday, June 1, 2017, I had my first speaking "gig" as Torahlife Ministries. I have spoken in churches and Messianic synagogues many times in my life, but this speaking engagement was the most exciting. It was the DOD (Department of Defense) Team Orlando Prayer Breakfast. God truly prepared me for that time. To truly understand what happened, I am going, to the best of my ability, break the time frame down into three sections:
The 30 day timeframe before the Speech
The Speech
The time after the speech
Before the Speech
Between the time I announced this speaking engagement on my website blog on 5/19/17 until that day, our website views went crazy. According to Google analytics, we had 2511 "hits" in that timeframe with a large increase of people reading my blog and my bio. This was also during the Counting of the Omer toward Shavuot (Pentecost). What made this count more important is that you are expecting God to join you on Shavuot. The Jewish count of the Feast of Shavuot (Pentecost) was Wednesday, May 31 – the day before the speech
I hurt my lower back that day and was in pain preparing to deliver the speech. There were a lot of people praying for me. For those people, I say “Thank You”.
The Speech
I arrived around 6:30 AM. I spent a half hour preparing to give the speech. It would take the seven levels of faith recorded in the Brit Hadashah (New Testament) and compare them to the seven pieces of furniture in the Tabernacle. After announcements and prayer, it was decided that a song would be played before I spoke.
To truly understand the impact of that song, I must share what we to every Shabbat morning before we leave the house to go to Shabbat service. The TV is off. Between 730 and 8:00 we start playing CDs. It will start with Barry and Batya Segal’s "The Shema" with the words at the Temple Mount Wailing Wall when Israel captured Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967.
When this CD is finished, Paul Wilber's CD, "Shalom Jerusalem", is played. Paul Wilber will continue to play until 9:20 AM. The CD is shut off and the final song, played from the computer, is "Days of Elijah". Do you want to guess what song was chosen for that breakfast? If you said, "Days of Elijah", you would be right. Anyone who knows me, knows what that song means to me. I was supercharged before I said my first word, and the power of the anointing continued to rise at that point. It was a powerful message. The pain in my back was gone when I spoke my first word.
After the Speech
The pain in my back came back. Pictures were taken and one of them, Dr. Barbara Pemberton and me, is the picture attached with this blog. I was given a copy of “The Book of Mysteries" by Jonathan Cohn, "The Gospel in Ancient Hebrew", and an Ancient Hebrew Word Pictures book with CD on the ancient Hebrew language. I will use these books a lot. I also received a financial benefit from the teaching. The most important part was that I became good friends with the number of people. I will treasure these relationships for the rest of my life. God is good!