According to the American Medical Association, clinical death is the cessation of the pumping of blood by the heart through the body, which will inevitably result in the cessation of breathing.  It is a medical emergency, in which without immediate intervention the opportunity to reverse the condition will close, and legal death will be declared.

We had been pastoring Faith Tabernacle in Russellville, Arkansas for many years. On the evening of January 20, 2006, I received a phone call from Glen and Margaret Barnnon, a couple in my church, who were at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Their fourteen-year-old daughter, Jamie Burns, had developed Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) two day earlier and was in critical condition.

A few minutes after we arrived and greeted Glen and Margaret, Dr. Bannister ran to us and said, “Jamie is in full cardiac arrest, and we cannot get her back. We want you to come back and watch, so that you can see that we are doing everything possible to save her life!” They had already shocked Jamie 13 times and had been doing CPR on her for 40 minutes.

We were not ready for what we saw. Glen and Margaret fell to the floor in shock. Chyrel, my wife, went to the front of the monitor which showed a straight line—no heartbeat! About 20 more people were in the room. Chyrel began screaming at the devil and rebuking Satan’s power over Jamie, she got louder and louder as she screamed, “I command life to come back into Jamie in Jesus’ name!”

Meanwhile, I ran to Glen and Margaret to help them get up. As I approached them, the Lord told me to prophesy to them, “This sickness is not unto death. I the Lord God will raise Jamie up this day, and you will know that I am the Lord your God!” At first, I hesitated, because I feared that if she did not come back from the dead, I would be called a false prophet. But the Lord immediately urged me again to give them that prophecy. So I did! At that moment, a doctor yelled, “We have a heartbeat!”

We rejoiced and shouted praises to God! However, the doctors regained Jamie’s heart beat several times, but kept losing it. Jamie went into full cardiac arrest five times. This meant that she died five times, clinically speaking.

As I was ministering to Glen and Margaret on the floor, Chaplain John, the hospital chaplain, was praying with me. The doctors said that Jamie had eight broken ribs from the CPR, her heart was destroyed because of the 13 times that they had given her heart shock treatment, her kidneys had shut down, all her organs were failing, and she had no oxygen to her brain for an hour and five minutes. They told Glen and Margaret that they had a choice to make—to try to keep Jamie alive and take the risk that she would be in a vegetative state for the rest of her life, or to let her die. They chose life!

We kept praying and speaking God’s Word over Jamie for the next nine days. After nine days, Jamie walked out of the hospital in a completely healed state. She had no broken ribs, no brain damage, and her heart and all her organs were perfectly functioning! All the doctors, nurses, and staff members called Jamie the “Miracle child!”

We have copies of Jamie’s cardiopulmonary arrest records from the Arkansas Children’s Hospital, photos, the newspaper article from the Batesville Daily Guard by Jon Trobaugh, and a written testimony by Glen, Jamie’s stepfather.

Many years later, we accepted the call to return to the pastorate at Emanuel Chapel in South Coffeyville, Oklahoma, because the Lord had previously given me a vision of revival in Coffeyville, Kansas just across the border. I believed that this was to be the time of the harvest that I saw in my vision. I found that it indeed was that time, and revival has been going on and spreading for a few years now in the entire region. Revival in Coffeyville has not merely been shown me in a vision, but it has also been prophesied by Oral Roberts and Kenneth Copeland.

There has been church growth in my church and other pastors’ churches, healings, and deliverances. Also, a new church is being birthed in this revival. Coffeyville Worship Center, pastored by Dr. James F. Linzey, will soon be opening.

The anointing by which the dead has been raised has passed on to the Assembly of God pastor, Randy DePriest. And in the Spring of 2022, a woman who Rev. DePriest prayed for at the Coffeyville Regional Medical Center was raised to life, as witnessed by Dr. Landon D. Vinson, nurses, and staff members. Dr. Linzey, who has appeared on Trinity Broadcasting Network, CBS, and Daystar Television Network, reported on this for Charisma, and it has been picked up by Christian Broadcasting Network, God TV, World Net Daily, and Pneuma Review.

Jesus said, “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom He will” (Jn. 5:21, MEV). Also, both Elijah and Elisha, in 1 Kings 17:20-22 and 2 Kings 4:32-35, respectively, had seen the dead raised. Even a man who had died had risen from the dead after his corpse had come into contact with the bones of Elisha, as recorded in 2 Kings 13:21.

All things are possible if we only believe!

[Editor’s note: Documentation of Jamie Burns’ miraculous recovery is available upon request.]

Jim Linzey, currently serving as a pastor in Coffeyville, Kansas, shares a story about a miracle that happened in his community.

Recently, Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) and God TV reported that a woman in Coffeyville, Kansas rose from the dead. Landon D. Vinson, M.D., who was the attending physician, along with the local Assembly of God pastor, Randy DePriest who was called upon to console the next of kin upon the death of the woman, two nurses, and other staff members witnessed the miracle. Mr. Steve Warren, who is the senior multimedia producer of CBN News, and I communicated directly with Dr. Vinson. Here is CBN’s report.

“She Was Dead Before the Prayer and Alive After the Prayer”
https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2023/march/she-was-dead-before-the-prayer-and-alive-after-er-doctor-reports-clinically-dead-woman-revived-in-true-miracle

Craig S. Keener, author of Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, shares stories of people who experienced miraculous healing. This is part 2 of a special lecture series on apologetics given at Southwestern Assemblies of God University in the Summer of 2014.

Rob Wilkerson resonates with a recent article.

Robin Williams as Mr. Keating in Dead Poets Society

Jeffrey Overstreet, “How I Got Dead Poets Society Wrong: And how a great professor changed my mind” ChristianityTodayOnline (September 16, 2014).

Overstreet’s article brought back memories. A lot of them, to be honest. To some degree, the feelings the movie evoked returned to me like I saw it yesterday.

First, there were the memories of how I felt as a high school graduate, the same year the movie was released. I remember identifying intensely with Keating, a mentor every kid wished was his dad. I remembered thinking how much of Neil was in me, both the joyous freedom to be me, mixed with the insanity of conformity to cultural norms and standards.

Second, there were memories of how I felt about rules and standards. Growing up on the legalistic side of Christianity, I could understand the concerns of Neil’s father and Keating’s administration. Rebellion is built into every fiber and DNA strand of every human being. This was probably true of me when I watched it. The movie was like a pinball inside my soul, thrashing around, ringing bells, sounding noises, while smacked by the paddles of my legalistic upbringing and the taste of free grace.

Third, there are memories of my parenting. I’m a father to four awesome kids. Too often I’ve parented like Neil’s father. At least, that’s what I fear. More often I’ve wanted to parent like Keating, loosening the ropes, the guides of culture (including Christian culture) from the fragile sapling of grace I saw growing inside my children. Overstreet said it best. “Looking back at authority figures who have inspired my respect, and at those who have been driven by ego and a desire to control, I’ve come to suspect that anyone who seeks to instill character in another person by force will produce an equal and opposite reaction.”

There is a root found in both men in this movie. It is fear. Plain and simple. Neil’s father was fearful that his son wouldn’t fit into his tiny little world, that his son would find a type of happiness that he had talked himself out of years earlier. He was fearful of freedom, so he couldn’t let his son enjoy it. Then there’s Keating. Overstreet believes that “Mr. Keating models a healthy balance of freedom and responsibility. He descends into that world of order, accepting the form of a servant, and makes all things new. He shows them what the imagination, taking the shape of love, makes possible.” Perhaps. Probably. But undoubtedly obvious in Keating, as well as in his real life character, was this tinge of immaturity.

I just re-read the following poignant warning from the late Dr. Donald Bloesch: “Pentecostalism can become a new formalism, that words of prophecy and speaking in tongues can simply be outward acts that assure us of acceptance by our peers and be completely bereft of the sanctifying presence of the Spirit of God” (The Holy Spirit: Works & Gifts [Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000], p.14). This forms part of Bloesch’s own appraisal as one who counts himself within the Reformed traditions of the Church and yet wishes to receive the refreshing encouragement of Pentecostal spirituality with special regard to the ever renewing life and ministry of the Spirit in the life and ministry of the Church.

His call to Pentecostals is a call we must heed. In fact, I would say it is the voice of the Spirit to our movement. In our move away from dead formalism (as expressed by the early founders of twentieth century Pentecostalism) it is only too apparent that a static approach to tongues as a badge of Pentecostal inclusion becomes just one more brand of dead formalism. Tongues can be faked. And even genuine tongue speech can flow from a life needing sanctified. Just consider the Corinthians who seem to have both majored on tongues as well as sexual license while ignoring love for each other. They had tongues. They lacked purifying love.

As Paul says, speaking in tongues is not life-giving to the gathered church even while beneficial to the speaker (unless interpreted). Neither should it be regarded as simply an entrance token into the Pentecostal community. It is a testimony of the Spirit in the midst of the church as a call to holy living as we speak in holy tongues. It is the continuing testimony of the Spirit’s claim to the gathered church that Jesus is Lord. That he can give gifts as he sees fit, but that all of these flow from the freely given love of God in His Spirit. And the Spirit is the free gift of God because God is love. There is no possessing the Spirit (nor the signs of the Spirit), but only receiving again the filling of the Spirit as the abiding testimony of God’s gracious life-giving and sanctifying presence among us.

Thus, speaking in tongues cannot be treated as a mark for inclusion without regard to the continuing life of the Spirit in the gathered body of Jesus. Our Lord baptizes in the Spirit not as initiation and nothing more. He baptizes into the very life of the Spirit (John 7.38-39). He submerges us into that life which is every widening and deepening (Eph.3.13-21). That life which flows from the very throne of the Father and of the Lamb and brings healing to the nations and the renewal to the face of the earth (Rev.21.1-2). That life shared between Father and Son (John 5.26).

We know nothing about those who died that day, the condition of their souls, or why God chose to call them to judgment at the moment Whitefield proclaimed the word. But you and I do know that a holy terror gripped the people standing before him. This man was no ordinary preacher. The congregation knew that in a paralyzing way the Holy Spirit was “confirming the word with signs following.” Mark 16:20.

Dwight L. Moody’s Encounter With The Holy Spirit

A century ago, the ministry of Dwight L. Moody shook the nation in a way that continues to vibrate mankind to this day. What changed an ordinary man into one of the great voices in Christian history? Moody himself gives the explanation:

I began to cry as never before for a greater blessing from God. The hunger increased; I really felt that I did not want to live any longer. I kept on crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day in the city of New York—oh!, what a day, I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it. It is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say, God revealed Himself to me and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand.

Anthony Esolen, “Over Our Dead Bodies: Men Who Are Willing to Lay Down Their Lives Are Truly Indispensable,” Touchstone (June 2006, Vol 19, No. 5).

Someplace, Pennsylvania

Anthony Esolen’s article is rich and lyrical. It describes an all-American small town and the slate quarry that was once the economic heart of the community. Some might see the abandoned quarry as an ugly scar on the land. Others see it as a place to test and re-create themselves.

Even with modern equipment and techniques, quarries are risky, difficult places to work. Yet they produce products of great beauty, durability and value. The slate wrestled from the earth serves as superior roofing, tables or flooring. The product is worth the price.

The intended purpose of the quarry is in the past, but it continues to serve as a place where beauty, durability and value are created. Young men use the place as a swimming hole and graffiti wall. They test themselves against the very real risk of falling among the jagged rock, miles and hours from any reasonable help or rescue.

There are two main reasons for their somewhat reckless behavior. The first; the innate male urge to demonstrate their abilities and capabilities. The second; to leave enduring evidence of their passing through a place.

Risk And Reward

Sooner or later, men want to prove or demonstrate their skills and powers. They might try to perform for a large crowd. They may be satisfied if only they themselves know. Regardless of the audience, they want an authentic encounter with their limits. The reward of knowing exceeds the hazard of doing.

The problem is that we have taught ourselves to play it safe. Climbing out of the boat is an insane act. Challenging the might of Pharaoh with a single stick is suicidal at best.

We cannot advance God’s Kingdom from a place of safety and security. At the risk of becoming martyrs we do things that will bring others to Christ. Whether facing a spear in Ecuador, or the unsaved man in the next cubicle, are you willing to put yourself at risk for God’s Kingdom?

Long Term Significance

Every man wants significance. We want to matter, in a weighty way, if only for an hour in our lives. The scars or missing limbs become our badge(s) of honor. “I was there, and I did what needed to be done.”