There came a time when the first zeal of my early Christian life had begun to cool somewhat, but then in 1983, I heard that a very exciting preacher was coming to one of the churches in the town. A friend told me that the Christian life was really functioning for this preacher. It seemed as if he was getting his prayers answered in a completely different way to most other Christians. All this sounded very exciting to me. I spent my Easter holidays going to these meetings by Ulf Ekman. The enthusiasm and respect for the Word of God which appeared in his preaching gripped me. There was an impressive radiance of certainty and power, and it inspired me to read the Bible seriously and claim its promises.
A power surge at the end of the first session caught my attention. It seemed that God had revealed to the preacher that somebody in the audience had a problem with an ear. A well-built man came forward. As soon as the minister gently touched his ear, it looked as if he had been electrocuted. He lost his balance and fell onto the front row of seats, nearly breaking them in the process. I had never seen anything like that before.
The preacher really had my attention after that. I started to listen as I had never listened before. Here was someone who really knew how to live the Christian life. I wanted to absorb every sentence he spoke, and I took very careful notes. He said that everything the Bible promises can be ours by faith and that the greatest revival the world has seen is about to be launched. I certainly did not want to miss out on any of this.
I never realised it could be so exciting to be a Christian. I began to believe in promises in the Bible that I never dared believe in before. I even began to dare to believe that these promises were for me and could be realised in my own life.
I felt Ekman was a preacher of devotion and faith in a kind of Christianity, where it is natural to expect God’s miraculous intervention in one’s everyday life.
It also appeared to me as well that he was less stuffy and narrow-minded than other revival preachers. His whole emphasis was about taking your Christianity seriously in order for great things to begin to happen. All of this sounded like something new and marvellous. As well as that, I actually thought that many of the more traditional churches were a bit boring and introverted, not least those who claimed to be revival movements.
Ekman was daring to be straight and speak out about what the Bible says on different issues, and he was not ashamed of speaking out regarding unpopular and controversial Bible teachings. When he maintained that the churches showed very little interest in what the Bible is actually saying, I felt that this was something rather liberating to hear. He had also a joyous faith in the future and an enthusiasm which was catching. It seemed that God was going to do great things and it was exciting to be going to participate in it all.
I was hoping the enthusiasm would spread to the fellowship where I had my spiritual home. But this was not to be — criticism of the Faith teaching was steadily increasing instead. This made me very frustrated as Ekman’s meetings had been of such importance to me. At the same time, the preachers who criticised the Faith teaching were also people who meant very much to me, and I did not want to take sides.
When the Faith-movement (“Livets Ord” = “Word of Life”) started up as a separate movement in Sweden with a Bible school and church in Uppsala, I happened to be there and attended the meetings. I recognised some of the positive elements I had participated in when I was in the student fellowship in Uppsala. There was, however, also something with an off-flavour which accompanied them. There was a devotion and a power which I liked, but at the same time something made me a bit apprehensive. It was as if the praise and worship-singing and the speaking in tongues seemed to be more orchestrated by the leaders. It seemed that the joy and spontaneity I had known among the Uppsala students had become more stilted and artificial, and I got the impression that efficiency of performance was considered to be more important than genuine spiritual expression or spontaneity. I experienced a greater difficulty in daring to be different from others. This difficulty concerned not only the way one was praying, praising and worshipping, but especially the way one was evaluating any doctrinal questions. However, in spite of these drawbacks, I still recognised some of the positive devotion I had experienced as a new Christian. In spite of my initial resistance to the pressure to conform to the mould, I had, nevertheless, got hooked on this new movement and could not tear myself away from it.
By and by, I met people who went to a Faith Bible School. Some of them radiated great joy and enthusiasm — it simply shone out of their eyes. There were also some of them who appeared to be a bit odd. I attended a faith convention in order to learn more, and became infected by these people’s joy and devotion and their confident faith in the possibilities of what God could do. I thought that a year in such a Bible School might make me just as happy and confident.
There were two particular themes that especially caught my attention. The first one was about how to be led by the Spirit. This was something I had pondered over ever since I became a believer. Most Christians did not seem too sure about this subject, and I had not got any satisfactory answers. When I listened to the teaching at this convention, I got the impression that here was somebody who really knew what he was talking about and I was all ears.
The teaching on being led by the Spirit, implied that you had to pay very careful attention to an inner feeling that came from what was described as your own spirit, logical thinking, on the other hand, was described as something that could easily confuse you and stop you from discerning the inner guidance from your own spirit.
The other theme that affected me was a preacher who taught that it was the believer’s own responsibility to resist the devil; and resisting the devil meant resisting sin, sickness, poverty and anything else that seemed negative. We were taught that when Satan brought unwanted things into our lives, we were able to, and should, resist him. The preacher, John Osteen, taught us about this in a way that implied that God would not chase the devil away for us, but we had to do it ourselves. He said that we could learn something from his dog, which was good at chasing away intruders. It was implied that bold Christians chase away the devil, while those who are cowards let him roam around the house.
I was eager to practise both of these new teachings. At last I would have real victory in my Christian life, and then it would be possible for God’s plans to come true in my life. This thought made me full of enthusiasm.
Towards the end of this conference, I started to feel a little bit uneasy, as if something was not quite right. I started to rebuke Satan, as I had been taught, but this only made things worse. I thought that perhaps God was trying to show me that I was to change something in my life which would be in line with the teaching I had heard. In the weeks that followed, I was searching in every direction trying to find the will of God. I could not regain my peace of mind however much I tried, and I would rebuke Satan without getting anything but temporary relief from the increasing anguish and confusion.
As I went back to medical school after the summer holidays, I was not able to follow the lectures or study on my own. My mind was almost continuously occupied with trying to find the will of God and with struggling against Satan. I needed help, and in my desperation I quickly applied to the Word of Life Bible School. They were the ones who had the answers to my problems, as they knew how to find the will of God and how to resist Satan victoriously.
