Renowned evangelist, Rev. Isaac Omolehin, has recounted his first encounter with an angel of God.
Speaking at a forum recently, the founder of World Assembly Ministries, Ilorin, Kwara State, North central Nigeria, recounted that about 41 years ago, he was preaching in a church in Egbe, a town in Kogi State, North Central Nigeria, when the angel appeared and changed the atmosphere in less than 10 minutes.
“In 1984, Charles Ajunwa (a fellow Nigerian pastor) was to preach in Egbe. But he said he was going to Bauchi and asked me to preach in Egbe. Egbe is in Kogi State. So, I started the meeting. You see, I am not a newcomer. If you will listen, listen. If you will not listen, don’t. When we get home (Heaven), I will tell our father that I told you. If you ask me the topic of my sermon in 1984, I cannot remember.
“But there was something that happened, a little Heaven that was created in a space of less than 10 minutes that I will never forget till Jesus comes. As I was praying for the people, an angel stood beside me. If I close my eyes, I see him. If I open my eyes, I don’t see him. His body heat was affecting me, and I was moving for him. When I move for him, he follows me, and the heat will make me open my eyes again, and I will not see him. But then I concentrated on my duty.
“The people who are in the front row as we were praying… It’s an environment. Because those days were not talking of a crowd, we were talking of the presence of God. Now, the people who were in the front row, as we were praying, the chairs in the front row lifted up in the air with the people who were sitting on them, brought them to the altar, bent them, and they all fell, and the chairs went back and rearranged themselves,” he said.
Omolehin, who has been preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ for 50 years, said that following the atmosphere created by the angel’s appearance in the meeting, it would not require prayer for a dead person to rise.
The cleric said 41 years later, he is still craving to have a similar encounter, but that it has yet to happen.
“Since 1984, I have prayed to God over 100 times that God will grant me a similar experience again, and I have not seen it. I even asked God ‘Let me see it before I die, so I can claim a second one.” I have not seen it. But I have seen others,” he stated.
Omolehin, 74, stressed the need for Christians to have spiritual experiences that they can call their own. He said even if they doubt the experiences of others, they will not doubt their own.
He said, “From time to time, God wants to draw you into a circle where you can experience heaven on earth. It will be so privatized and classified. When they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus told them, “What you have seen here, don’t tell people (paraphrased).’
“You need to develop certain peculiar experience, you need to develop a spiritual season about your own, about your walk with God that nobody else knows about. Paul said he was speaking to the third heaven. You should develop your own experience. This ordinary Christianity you are doing won’t get you anywhere. God wants you to design spiritual experiences that are native to you.
“I pray for you that you will have an experience of heaven. It will be your own experience. The one we tell you, you can debate it. The one we tell you, you can argue about it. Some of you don’t even know where Egbe is. When we tell you, you can doubt it, but you cannot doubt your own experience. Nobody can debate your own experience with you.”
